Bucket Brigade

Darkness has been defined as the absence of light, so then when light is introduced darkness is always defeated by light. Additionally the more light there is the more the darkness recedes.

The Bible calls a number of things light.

God is light

¹ The Lord is my light and my salvation-- whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life-- of whom shall I be afraid?
Psalm 27:1 (NIV)

Jesus Christ is light

¹² When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
John 8:12 (NIV)

⁵ While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
John 9:5 (NIV)

⁴⁶ I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.
John 12:46 (NIV)

God’s Word is called light

¹⁰⁵ Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.
Psalm 119:105 (NIV)

Israel was called to be the light of the world

⁶ "I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles,
Isaiah 42:6 (NIV)

⁶ he says: "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth."
Isaiah 49:6 (NIV)

They were to reflect God and his glory to the Gentiles. This light included peace, joy and salvation in knowing and serving God. There were times when Israel failed to accurately portray God and God would have to clean their mirror. Usually this meant discipline from God by allowing other nations to attack the people of God. When the nation repented and turned back to God, God would intervene and save his people.

Almost without exception this salvation was supernatural in nature. Joshua and company march around Jericho and the walls fall down. Gideon and 320 men route tens of thousands of Midianite soldiers. Jehoshaphat, at God’s command, put the choir in the front of the army and their enemies were destroyed. David a teenage shepherd goes up against a giant and God give victory.

Each time Israel is spared it is by divine intervention. God was saying “People are watching and I can’t let you get away with disobedience. My reputation is at stake. It isn’t about you, it’s about me!” The nation would eventually repent and God would rescue them and get the glory.

Individual believers are now called to represent God as his light to a dark world.

¹⁴ "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.
¹⁵ Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:14-67 (NIV)

During war time those fighting and those in midst of the conflict are often endure ordered blackouts. No light is supposed to escape into the night giving the enemy a target to attack or launch bombs at. Even vehicles’ lights were reduced sometimes by blackout stripes allowing on the smallest amount of light to illuminate the road ahead. God does not battle this way. With our God, light is used to overcome the evil!

¹⁹ This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
John 3:19-21 (NIV)

As his representatives how are we doing reflecting his light and his glory? Light can be best seen when there is something to contrast it to, such as darkness. Often dark days have to come so that God’s glory can be seen in miraculous ways.

⁶ For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:6 (NIV)

⁸ For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light
Ephesians 5:8 (NIV)

I’m reminded of the new LED lights. While individually they don’t appear to give off a lit of light, a single diode can be seen for almost a mile once it is lit up. Gather a group of these LEDs provide more light then any incandescent lamp around and with a fraction of the cost.

Just like an LED light we have been told will virtually never burn out, so God’s light will never burn out. In him there is no shadow of turning.

¹⁷ Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
James 1:17 (NIV)

We need to clean up our reflectors. Let our light shine before men so that they may see our good works and glorify our Father. And finally make sure we don’t obscure God’s light in this world by putting a bucket over the light.

Pass the bucket please

Pastor Val

Residual Light

Recently I was talking with a friend who used a new term that he had heard in a management seminar. The term “residual light” actually comes from astronomy and is used to describe the light that still exists from a star that has died. You see starlight created today in the Milky Way traveling at the speed of light (299 792 458 miles per second) takes years and years to reach our sight here on earth.

According to the website www.astronomyexpert.co.uk/TheDeathOfStars.html there are two primary ways for a star to stop emitting light. It can simply die a long slow death and go cold or it can go super nova and explode with a spectacular light show and creating a black hole when it dies.

This idea of starlight started me thinking about light and how it is dealt with in the Bible.

· Light is seen as a symbol for what is pleasant, good, or uplifting, and is especially related to God. “The Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory” (Is 60:19). The psalmist exulted, “The Lord is my light and my salvation,” and proceeded to ask, “whom shall I fear?” (27:1). God is said to be robed with light (Ps 104:2) and light dwells with him (Dn 2:22).

· During the plagues in Egypt the Egyptians experienced thick darkness while the Israelites had light (Ex 10:23). When the Israelites left Egypt, they were led in the wilderness by a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night (Ex 13:21). The pillar gave them light while their enemies were in darkness (Ex 14:20). In later days Israel remembered that God did not abandon his people even when they sinned; the pillar of fire was always there to show them the right way (Neh 9:19; cf. Neh 9:12; Pss 78:14; 105:39).

· A Godly leader is sometimes identified with light. Thus when the Israelites decided that King David should no longer risk his life on the battlefield they said, “You shall no more go out with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel” (2 Sam 21:17).

· Sometimes judgment on Israel is expressed as a withdrawal of light: “Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord?… Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?” (Amos 5:18, 20; cf. Is 13:9, 10).

· In the Old Testament the absence of light is a synonym for disaster. There are those who “grope in the dark without light” (Job 12:25). Bildad saw the light of the wicked put out in punishment and death (Job 18:5–17). The wicked will be “thrust from light into darkness, and driven out of the world” (Job 18:18). In the aftermath of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem was the lament, “He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light” (Lam 3:2).

· In the New Testament Jesus said, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12; 9:5), and “I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness” (John 12:46). Jesus told his followers to believe in the light while it was with them (John 12:35 Christ not only brought a revelation from God as a revealer but He himself was and is the revelation and light himself. (John 1:1–10)

· Followers of Christ are also called light in the New Testament. When they are called the light of the world, there is clearly no saving significance in the description. They do not accomplish the world’s salvation. But they do point it out. It is their function as redeemed people to live as redeemed people. They are to show the quality of life proper to the people of God and in this way act as light to the people of the world. They are to let their light shine before the world in such a way that people will see their good deeds and so come to praise God (not, be it noted, those who do the deeds, Matt. 5:16). It is important for those in this position to make full use of the light they have. It is tragedy when the light that is in them is darkness (Matt 6:23; Luke 11:35).

You and I know many churches and even people that have been great lights in the past but today like dying stars have either become cold and lost their fire or have gone super nova and have exploded wreaking havoc not only with those closest to them but in the community around them.

The light that is Christ, who dwells within his people, is supposed to have illuminated us. If we ignore the illumination he brings us and live like those in the dark, then indeed we are in deep darkness. We are worse than others because we know what light is and what it can mean to us, and have turned away from it.

How do we fix this lack of light in our lives? Two things: First recognize it and repent (that means change your ways) and second, like the story of the wedding party waiting for the bridegroom be prepared with enough oil for your lamp so that when the time comes your lamp is lit and shining at it’s full capacity! Third, we must stay connected to the source of our Light.

Anyone got a light?

Pastor Val

Christmas a Season of Time and Light

Time is such an important part of our human experience. We are bound by time and controlled by time. Yet God is not controlled by time since He exists outside of time. Rather time is controlled and planned by God the Father. The Bible says that “when the right time came, God sent his Son {into the world}. A woman gave birth to him, and he came under the control of God's laws. God sent him to pay for the freedom of those who were controlled by these laws so that we would be adopted as his children.” Galatians 4:4-5 (GW)

So when the time was right the light of God (or perhaps I should say God the Light) entered the world and his light became the light of men.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. … The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:1-5; 9-14 (NIV)

I am reminded of this ancient medieval Christmas prayer at Communion: "...through the mystery of the Incarnate Word the light of God's brightness has shone anew on the eyes of our mind so that, while we see God visibly through Jesus Christ, we may be seized by love for the invisible things of God."

(For those of you wondering where this prayer is found it was translated from the Latin in the Gregorian sacramentary as found in Jean Deshusses, Le sacramentaire grégorian, ses principales formes d’après les plus ancient manuscripts, Spicilegium Friburgense 16 (Fribourg, 1979), pp. 98-106. It's from the preface for the main mass for the morning of Christmas at St. Peter's. Thanks Lester for the reference!)

To each of you may the Light and Life of Christmas make Himself real to you in a deeper more meaningful way this Christmas Season!

Pastor Val