LIGHT-BEARERS

The summer and winter Olympics begin and end—so appropriately—with a torch. From Greece, birthplace of the Olympics, a torch is ignited via the sun-reflected heat in a parabolic mirror, then begins its journey to the current games site. There’s a lot of pagan mythology in the torch background, but it’s a good cousin to this décor saying:

Be the light.

The Olympic flame has an on-again, off-again world-wide life.  In contrast, Jesus is all-on.

[Jesus] 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)

To this statement, the religious types of His day complained, “You’re just saying that about yourself.  Who would back that up?” (John 8:13).

He replied that He did have a witness to His claim to be the light: His Father in heaven (John 8:14-19).

That was tough teaching for folks who figured “righteous living” depended on keeping umpteen hundred little laws handed down (and invented) through antiquity. Of such people, the apostle John wrote, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (John 1:5). They weren’t expecting God to visit this planet!

Later on, in the letter written in his old-age, the apostle John urged right and “light” living, as opposed to religious “pretenders” whose man-imposed rules for living and behavior just kept them in spiritual darkness:

God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.  If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:5-7)

That quote is powerful.  Re-read it. It reviews two choices: to walk down life’s road in the darkness of grudges, bitterness, fear and other negative attributes. Or to get so close to Jesus that we bask in His glow.  The ritual for the Olympic torch begins with the heat of the sun. We have so much better: the Sun of Righteousness, who has risen with healing in His wings (Malachi 4:2).