Luke 11:35-36 See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. 36 Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.”
Our eyes tell a lot about a person. We can often look into someones eyes and see sadness, joy, hope or any number of other things. As a Marriage Therapist, I use what I see to help me guide my questions and the pace of therapy itself.
When we visit a physician they often will look in our eyes as part of the checkup. They listen to our breathing and to our heartbeat. They thump our chest and press our abdomen. All of these things give them signs about what is going on inside our body.
Jesus is telling a story about the essence of a person. He equates it to a light in a room. We don’t hide lights under opaque objects if we want to be able to see. We attach them to ceilings or out in the open on top of a pole. Then the light penetrates the whole space, illuminating life itself.
And then Jesus says that our eyes are the lamp of the body. The eyes shine what is inside the body, inside the soul and spirit of a person. The stuff that is inside is the light that comes out of the eyes. That stuff is your light.
So Jesus warns His disciples that it is important that they have light inside themselves. If they don’t then their lamp, their eyes, will shine darkness. Not a good thing! The light we shine is supposed to illuminate the way to the Gospel.
Can you imagine a device that shined darkness, sucking up the light as it de-illuminated its environment. You pull out this dark light, turn it on and everything in your area goes black. It would be a great tool for thieves and robbers.
Jesus wants our lives to shine for Him. The things we do and say tell of the quality of the light we possess. And others can see in our eyes whether we are sincere or if we have some con brewing.
Today this quality is called authenticity. If we could peer into the depths of ourselves, what would we see? I think we would see the very things that we are doing that either reflect well on Jesus on reflect poorly. Our actions and attitude signal the world about our inner peace and tranquillity or tempest and turmoil.
If there is ever a time in history when we need light shining through the Body, it is now. Let us allow the light of Christ illumine us so that the light shining our of is pure Jesus. Our compassion and gentleness, always wrapping the Truth, need to come to the forefront of our existence. May it do so today.
The Arnold Journey 