Light Shining on Scripture

 

Across the street is a lazy creek; it is too small to be a river and too wide to be a brook. It is best not to attempt to swim from one bank to the other, for from time-to-time alligators stop to spend a day or two or three and one never knows the last time they had a good meal. The creek is east of our home and I enjoy the play of light on the landscape as the day unfolds.

 

Most of us have likely seen seasonal photos of a scene, with fall, winter, spring, and summer – each season with a different perspective, highlighting one facet of the scene one season, and another point of interest the next. The difference between photos of the four seasons and the daily slideshow to the east of our home is that our slideshow changes throughout each day, not just throughout the year. Light determines our slideshow; its presence, its absence, its refraction, its interplay with clouds and temperature and water and the shadows of the woods on our side of the creek.

 

The fact of the creek is always there, the woods are always there, the landscape near and far does not itself change, but my perception of what I see does change, what arrests my interest changes, the composition of the tableau is determined by light – and in the early morning and late afternoon by light that is especially fleeting. The morning dawn waits for no photographer, the evening sunset may linger…but not for long.

 

The kaleidoscopic patterns east of our home may speak to me one way today, and another way tomorrow. In fact, they may say one thing in the morning, another in the afternoon, yet another in the evening, and still another in the stillness of the night. But note – the base reality of the creek, the east and west banks of the creek, the woodland – these remain the same, what changes is the play of light on them – none of my perceptions contradict one another because the base reality remains the same – none of them deny the creek, the water, the woodlands, the banks.

 

And so we meditate on the Scriptures, anticipating the enlightening of them (and our hearts) by the Holy Spirit, looking forward to communing with our Lord Jesus and our heavenly Father. How shall God’s light reveal the tableau of Romans Chapter 1 today? How shall Psalm 34 be revealed to me this morning? How shall Light fall on Deuteronomy Chapter 25?

 

This is why, after reading the Bible for decades, that it can be newer and newer, fresher and fresher, and more exciting than ever…and for sure more surprising in its glory of revealing Jesus Christ. This is why we can read a passage hundreds of times and never grow tired of its beauty as the Light rises to shine on it. Our attention may be drawn to a certain thought today, a prayer tomorrow, a word the next day, a nuance the following day – all in the same passage…all revealing our Lord Jesus, all drawing us into deeper koinonia within the Trinity. All of these images and thoughts are complementary – refracting the base reality in the Word of God, and behind the Word of God. As the Psalmist writes, “In Your Light we see light.”