Scripture: Exodus 25:31–40; John 1:1–13

From the beginning of Scripture in Genesis to its end in the book of Revelation, light is an important and recurring theme.

There are two lights: an uncreated Light that is spiritual, emanating from God, and a created light that is visible and ordered according to the natural laws of the universe. Both belong to the Good.

Yet the uncreated Light — in which there is no darkness — is hidden within this created light, so that we perceive a visible and invisible light within light.

God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light — a pure emanation, like a river of light flowing from its source. In the Gospel of St. John we hear, “In the beginning was the Word,” the divine Logos.

Over time and through the greatest thinkers and theologians, this Word is understood as divine Wisdom or Reason, by which God created, sustains, and orders the universe. He is the second person of the Trinity, the Son, the eternal Word and the Light of the world.

Through the One Creator, His life became our light on our journey through time. Human life is not chosen but given as a privilege — a rare gift of conscious being in the vast desert of space that makes each of us equal in our common humanity and standing before God.

This is a privilege that no other on earth has the right to take away. Yet in this fallen world, in the darkness of sin, many transgressions surround us on every side.

Even the High Street of consumerism feels like walking through the valley of the shadow of death. We become so attached to things and to the appearance of needs and passions that exist in the realm of shadows and false opinions — for in reality, we need very little.

Jesus teaches us, through His life with us then and now through the Holy Spirit, that we can let go and walk as children of the light in the world, yet not belonging to it.

In the Exodus scripture, techne — the art of bringing something into being — is given to the ancient people so they might make manifest an invisible reality, an outward and visible sign of God’s presence with His people.

Craftsmen were given skills and knowledge by the Spirit to create objects according to humanity’s encounter with the transcendent reality of God as Creator and Sustainer of the universe.

The sanctuary, the place where God would be known and dwell among them, contained various objects as signs to the people. The lampstand, fashioned from one piece of gold, was symbolic of the unity and oneness of the Kingdom of Heaven.

It also served as a reminder of Moses’ encounter with the burning bush and the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.

“What do you see, Jeremiah?” the Lord asked. Jeremiah responded, “I see the branch of an almond tree” — a type pointing forward to the Son, Emmanuel, God with us.

The great “I AM” of Exodus and the seven “I AM” statements in St. John’s Gospel reveal, through the Holy Spirit, the continuity and oneness of God: who was, who is, and who is to come.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105).

And so we here and now have this word, passed on for centuries by tradition. The speaker is like a lighthouse, emanating God’s wisdom into the world.

For those who have been baptised, this word enters by hearing, resonates in our hearts and minds, and works with the Holy Spirit — for we are now the sanctuary, temples of the Holy Spirit. With clean hands and pure hearts we encounter God here and now; the Church, the People of God, replaces the mountaintop.

This encounter with the eternal Word is our food from heaven. It is to be digested and used to infuse the same light into all our activities in the world.

All our movement through space and time is to become an encounter with the Gospel of Christ. Where we fail, that falling short is given to God with humility, so that, like trees, we come to depend on His light alone as our sustenance for mission.

Each one of us is a missionary.

People are not saved or condemned by our feelings about them, but if we condemn and do not love, what good have we done? We have condemned ourselves.

For God loves everyone, and His Passion, death, and resurrection were for all humanity. What good are we doing when we condemn one whom God loves and desires to draw to Himself?

An encounter with us is meant to be an encounter with Christ. We are known here among ourselves, but we are also strangers to many.

When a stranger sees us, what light do they see? Is it the radiant light of Christ at work in us? Perhaps it is the reflected light of the Apostles and Saints before us — the ones who, just as we are now, navigated the stormy seas of the world and showed us the narrow path, following Him whom we love.

Every person retains the seeds of the Logos by virtue of being human, made in the Imago Dei. Yet perfect relationship is restored through baptism. Do we love our brothers and sisters enough to show them by our lives that only Jesus saves — that all types and shadows find their end in Him?

The liturgy of the Word is a raising of our minds to contemplate the good, the true, and the beautiful. We do this together as a common good. It reorients our hearts and minds to look together toward God in Christ.

As St. Paul writes, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:2–3). That is to say, our life is in His Wisdom — a light hidden in the Light.

Taking the Word into our being is sacramental, not a form of entertainment. It is to be lived through the offices of priest, prophet, and king. This principle is echoed in Jesus’ words: “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).

Through the liturgy and the praise of God, we transcend the merely visible and learn to see differently: there is nothing ordinary about our day, nothing mundane on this beautiful planet or in your life.

You are loved, made for love, through love. God is love, and we were made to show that love and make it a tangible reality in a world so often filled with imaginations of new anthropomorphic heroes — mere people in the sky with fantasies of power and all our human flaws.

Even the ancients understood that imagination often lacks any foundation in the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Plato’s Divided Line places imagination at the very bottom, farthest from the Good, with logic, reason, and the world of things in between.

Justice demands truth.

Our reason for being is not merely filling in the gaps. St. Anselm’s ontological argument begins in the realm of reason and orders it upward to the truth that is God. St. Aquinas, by contrast, reasoned from the objective visible world upward through reason to the First Cause we call God in his cosmological argument. 

Transcendence comes through the eternal Word, our rational nature giving assent through faith seeking understanding.

Our freedom comes through letting go of the world. It comes through living as we were always intended to be: children of God. The liturgy — the outward visible sign of this identity — is taken inwardly so that the light may work in us and go out from us for this mission. Yes, we are all appointed for this mission. 

We cannot hide this light under a basket. When we stand at the end before Him at final judgement — when He called us out from the world so that when trouble comes, we might be there for it — did we reply, “Here am I, send me?” Or did we think this was for someone else? “Whom shall I send?” He sent His only Son, and now here we are.

We are not merely bodies, but souls, and our lives are a place — a home with lamps lit for God, for self, and for others. From here we too bring forth beauty, like art, because we were fearfully and wonderfully made, known by Him before we were born.

The Church, our gathering, is a common good where we not only invite Him into our hearts, but where He invites us into His home to dwell together in community — where strangers and neighbours stand and breathe together as one. Like a lampstand on a hill, as one and as many.

Amen.