GLORY, GLORY HALLELUJAH

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

GLORY, GLORY HALLELUJAH

For an unbelieving contemporary of Jesus, his words, “I am the light of the world” must have seemed really audacious.  It seems that someone would have said.  “What?  What did you say?”  Imagine what we would think if any of our friends said to us, “I am the light of the world.”  We’d say, “Yeah.  Right.”  And if we truly cared about that friend we’d be trying to convince him that he needed professional help.  Sometimes, thinking about the incredible things Jesus said about himself, I’ve wondered how anyone listened to him long enough to realize that he was, indeed, telling the truth.  That people took him seriously speaks to the fact that he spoke as one with authority.  However, those audacious words were not a hindrance to me when I became a Christian.  I was saved as a child, so they were accepted as truth long before they had to make sense.

It seems to me that a thinking person would not be able to hear the words of Jesus, “I am the light of the world” without wondering what on earth he was talking about.  I used to assume that those words had something to do with understanding, as in, to shed light on a subject, or to illuminate something or make it more clear; in other words, I assumed it was an intellectual sort of thing.  Or perhaps an emotional one, like the old song lyrics, “You Light Up My Life.”  Or perhaps a description of righteousness.  Could that be what the words found in 1 John 1, “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all” could be about?

Other stories from scripture that connect Jesus with light seemed to have happened so long ago and far away; stories such as the time Jesus took his friends John, James, and Peter up on a mountain and where, as he was praying the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightening.  Not only long ago and far away, but almost from another reality.  Where could that happen and what could it possibly mean?

Three or four years ago I got an inkling of what it was all about.  It was an off and on cloudy day.  I was driving into Woodinville on 522 when suddenly huge, huge rays of bright, bright light broke through the clouds ahead of me and seemed to reach down from the sky to the horizon.  They covered the whole sky.  They were breathtakingly bright and beautiful.  I was reminded of Mark 13:26;

“At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.  And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”

I wondered if I would suddenly be drawn up one of those highway beams of light and meet my mom and dad, all of you, John and Paul and Peter and Jesus himself in the air.  “Is it today, Lord,” I prayed.  “Is it today?”

Suddenly, Jesus as the light of the world was not so difficult to understand in an intuitive way.  Obviously, Jesus did not return then, but the memory of that picture of the bright beams of light pouring through the clouds and the question, “Is it today?” has stayed with me.  When I think back on it I realize that I learned something else that day.  I learned a little bit about the word glory.

I like to write.  Words mean something to me and I try to get them right when I use them, so it is not at all uncommon for me to look up a word in the dictionary.  Since glory is one of those words some religious people use a fair amount, but often don’t seem to understand, I looked it up to be sure I had it right.  Some of the definitions were, “a radiant beauty or splendor; magnificence, heaven, or the bliss of heaven.”  I had it right.  Those words described the beams of light I saw reaching from heaven to earth.  They were a reminder of Jesus, the glorious one, and His description of Himself as light.  Jesus, the light of the world.  Glory, glory, hallelujah.