The World’s Light

Jesus once again addressed them: “I am the world’s Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.”

John 8:12 MSG

When we think of light we probably think of the sun and, as Lewis said (1947, Miracles) “We believe that the sun is in the sky at midday in summer not because we can clearly see the sun (in fact, we cannot) but because we can see everything else”. Or, as he has said elsewhere, “I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen—not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else” and “We cannot see light, though by light we see things” (1960, The Four Loves, Harcourt, Brace and World.

A prayer for today

May the blessing of light be on you – light without and light within.
May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great peat fire, so that stranger and friend may come and warm himself at it.
And may light shine out of the two eyes of you, like a candle set in the window of a house, bidding the wanderer come in out of the storm.
And may the blessing of the rain be on you, may it beat upon your Spirit and wash it fair and clean, and leave there a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines, and sometimes a star.
And may the blessing of the earth be on you, soft under your feet as you pass along the roads, soft under you as you lie out on it, tired at the end of day; and may it rest easy over you when, at last, you lie out under it.
May it rest so lightly over you that your soul may be out from under it quickly; up and off and on its way to God.
And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly. Amen.