God is Light (A “Scripture String Theology”)

Now this is the message that we have heard from him and proclaim to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.

1 John 1:5

God is good; He is Light. He made us (Creation); we belong to Him. But we have closed our eyes to the Light of His goodness which He shines gently upon all: His Divine Son, who is God from God, Light from Light. We have closed our eyes to the Light; We suspect Him. We want many of the gifts He has given us, but we don’t want Him. We have rebelled against the Light.

Gross is the heart of this people, … they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes … and be converted, and I heal them.

Matthew 13:15

We have closed our eyes lest we see the Light of His goodness; we don’t want to believe that He is good because we do not want to be vulnerable before Him. We are afraid of love. Afraid that if we let Him love us, we will lose whatever of His gifts we cling to; the gifts we have made into idols, that is, into dead gods. And so we walk in darkness.

 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

John 1:9

But the God who is Light responded by sending His Son into the world, to be the Light of the world. In response to our rejection of His gentle Light, He increased His Light in the world. Instead of rejecting us for our rebellion, He doubled down on His love for us: He sent His Son in human flesh (Incarnation) and He died for us (Death & Resurrection).

Whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

John 3:21

As His gentle light intensified, He opened the eyes of many; soothing our rebellious hearts, lightly loosing the hold of our hands upon our idols. Then we were ready to turn to the fuller Light of His Son now revealed, and found in the Word of the Gospel, preached by His servants (Gospel).

You are my lamp, O Lord! My God brightens the darkness about me.

2 Samuel 22:29

Now the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Light of the world, is a lamp within us. In His light, we no longer walk in darkness. He has loosened even more our grasp upon our idols. He has freed us of fear. He has opened us to love. We believe in His goodness.

God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of [Jesus] Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:6

In Jesus Christ, God has shone within our hearts so that we know God, revealed in the face of His Son Jesus. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, the Life, and the Light. If we know Him, we know God His Father. And so, because we know Him, we seek to know Him more, so as to know the Father more. We gaze upon His Face (Prayer, Scriptures, Sacraments), present in our hearts by the grace and Spirit of God.

All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.

2 Corinthians 3:18

Now that the Light of God has removed our fear; now that the veil of fear is removed, we gaze upon the Face of Jesus, and we are changed. As the gentle Light increased in stages before we knew Christ (in Creation, in Incarnation, in Death & Resurrection, in Gospel), so now, as we gaze on Christ (in our personal prayer, in the Scriptures, and in the Sacraments), the Light increases more and more, and we are changed.

Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.

Matthew 5:16

Now, since we bear the Light of God and His Christ within us, we shine. Let us shine our light before others. Let us give the witness of lives lived in Jesus Christ. Let us beg heaven to increase the Light in the world. Let us share the light, by sharing the Gospel.