A Great Light

 A Great Light.  The red ball at sunrise, the white blaze at noon, the satellites whizzing around our Earth (especially visible an hour after sundown), even the moon—there is nothing that we have seen of the great beyond with the naked eye that has not passed first through the film of our atmosphere. We have never seen the North Star or any shooting star without millions of tons of nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), argon (0.9%), and other trace gases (0.1%) stretched across our sight. We are accustomed to the veil. “We see in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12). Literally and figuratively, “People have loved the darkness rather than the light” (John 3:19).

As the first week of Advent becomes the second and as November becomes December, a curious description surfaces in the revelation of Jesus Christ to earth. The region that first knew Jesus, the land of Zebulun and Naphtali (Isa. 9:1), did not know him as Messiah. They, like everyone since, saw but could not perceive Christ—at least not without help—because they, like everyone ever, were spiritually blind. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined” (Isa. 9:2).

The peculiar part is the how. Being spiritually blind and characterized as dwelling “in a land of deep darkness,” how did they see this great light? They lacked the capacity to see Truth truly, yet “on them has light shined.” A bright light in a dark space usually, physically blinds us. But Christ, who is the true Light, enlightens us by shining in our dark place. We were all blind to the light of the gospel, but he heals the blind. We don’t see him as much as he enables us to see him. Having been caused to see him rightly, we perceive everything else through him.

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:3-6).