Searching For a Great Light
Introduction
The more important the message from the Lord the harder it is for me to hear him. Recently I have been persistently praying, and asking others to do the same, about the imminent coming of a great Light. This prophecy about Jesus is a foundational text, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.” (Isa 9:2; Matt 4:16). The relationship between deep darkness and great light is vastly profound. The very start of scripture indicates dark is a preparation for the coming of light. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” (Gen 1:1-3). Reading the Bible through Christ, the initial creation account is a symbolic prophecy of how Jesus “brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,” (2 Tim 1:10).
This teaching took on a surprising direction on account of my 70th birthday celebration. It was mysteriously wonderful for a shy person like me that 120 people, from all over geographically, racially, and culturally, met united in Christ as a small reflection of the coming kingdom of God. From this occasion the Lord asked me a surprising question. “Are you willing to lose fellowship with all these delightful people?” What should not surprise you is that this question is really about the cross.
Another Layer of Darkness
In the likeness of John Baptist, I’ve long desired to be a prophet “bearing witness” to the Word of Light through announcing of “the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:7-8). John’s ministry as “a burning and shining lamp” (John 5:35) was exercised in the context of the rejection of the Light “by his own people” (John 1:11). Moreover, the polarisation caused by the Baptist’s ministry (Luke 3:7-18) foreshadowed the intensifying of darkness and light that followed Jesus. Through life-long ridicule (Luke 1:14), blasphemy (Matt 12:32), attempts on his life (Luke 4:29 etc.), apostolic false witness (Matt 10:2; 26:74; Luke 22:21-22) and betrayal by a “close friend” (Ps 41:9; John 13:18) Jesus endured great inner pain. This pain was consummated in the cross.
As a person in whose image and likeness we were created to the glory of the Father (Col 3:9-11), the fullness of Jesus’ own human identity was tied to his covenant fellowship with other people. I have always emphasised that the Son’s entry into end time darkness meant losing fellowship with God as Father, “when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land…Jesus cried with a loud voice…“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:33-34). Now, I sense another layer of darkness engulfing Jesus, the loss of spiritual communion with his beloved friends (John 15:15), his mother, and the saints in heaven (Heb 12:22-24) through whom he had seen so much of the love of the Father. This loss of fellowship meant for Jesus a dark hellish experience in an even fuller way. It degraded Jesus’ humanity in one of the most agonising dimensions of hell, the absolute anonymity of being without any meaningful human contact.
Bearing the Cost
I fear we have almost completely lost the insight of The Loneliness of the Christian (A. W. Tozer) because we have not properly counted the human cost of following Jesus who usually began his call to follow with a recipe for social loss. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26). This is a realm of sensitivity we must reclaim. I’ll never forget Bill Hybels sharing his words to an unbelieving friend, “I can’t bear the thought that you won’t be in heaven.” Bill was bearing the darkness of his (later to be converted) friend in the “the afflictions of Christ” (Col 1:25). This disposition is hard enough, but what it means in the Church is harder.
Blood Reveals Eternal Light in Us
The revival of Church usually starts not with outward miracles but with confession and repentance, because these are the first signs of the unambiguous breaking forth of the light of the gospel word about Christ (2 Cor 4:4). The Lord spoke intensely about inner spiritual illumination, “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.” (Luke 11:34-36). This is no ordinary light, but a beaming forth of the light of the eternal city of God, the Church, irradiated by the Lamb in her midst (Rev 21:9-10, 23). The mystery of how Christ’s dazzling presence through the Church can be released now (Eph 3:10) is expounded by the Bible’s greatest expositor of divine light, the apostle John.
“the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 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 cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:5-7) When the blood of the cross is applied by the Spirit to the conscience concerning our hidden heart attitudes towards our brothers/sisters, the result is a vigorous repentance which removes the darkness of sin and fills the Body with marvellous light (1 Pet 2:9). This light empowers remarkable intercession, community prophecy and extraordinary outreach and mission (Acts 2:4, 11; 4:24ff; 13:1-3).
When the Light Returns each of us will shine “like the brightness of the sky above” and like “the sun in the kingdom of the Father” (Dan 12:3; Matt 13:43), so the more this comes through NOW the more those who are in darkness will have a great revelation of their perishing state and repent en masse.
Conclusion
God’s essential nature is as the common Father of us all across ages, generations, cultures and races (Eph 3:14). Despite decades of liberalism and laziness darkening the complexion of Western Christianity, the Lord’s essential nature as the “Father of lights” (James 1:17) cannot remain hidden under a basket (Matt 5:14-15). After the pattern of the first and second creations, with deep darkness preceding great light (Gen 1:1-3; Mark 15:34; 2 Tim 1:10), we must believe that as we see a growing darkness of injustice and ungodliness in Australia towards the righteous a great light is beginning to dawn (2 Pet 1:19). This light of Christ is so compelling (2 Cor 5:14-15) that it will produce a field of light(s) radiating from a Body in which every member will be so in love with Jesus that they will categorically be willing to die for him, and for each other, whether at home or abroad. In practice, such suffering is the unveiling of the mystery of the gospel as the light of the world in each of us (Matt 5:14; John 8:12; Eph 5:8; Phil 2:15). All glory to the Lord God Almighty (Rev 15:3-4)!