* light; that which illuminates and makes manifest. 

I came downstairs this morning to the sun streaming  into the house.  There’s been so much grey morning fog and smoke from controlled fires blanketing the valley and the hillsides, the brightness of this new day was almost blinding. I also tried to ignore the dirty windows now mercilessly exposed and all the dog hair on the carpets and wooden floor which I’d not noticed this week. It seems that with light comes exposure, even of my housekeeping. Note to self: Vacuum today!

Nevertheless, I sat down at the table to write, basking in the golden morning. On the windowsill two Christmas cactuses are almost in full bloom.  What a marvel to see them bud so regularly each fall, to find a late garden  at  the window. In his poem “Trees”, the 19^th century poet Joyce Kilmer  wrote: “Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.” I’ll add to that, only God can tease  such  exquisite blooms out of  the cactus.

Outside the window there’s a solar mobile daughter Laura gave me – six clear plastic hummingbirds  strung  from a hook. After a day absorbing sunlight,  the  mobile  becomes phosphorescent and rainbow colored, like exotic birds dancing at night.   When I can’t sleep and wander at midnight, it lifts my spirits. Light in the darkness has that effect. I’ve noticed however, that this last week the little mobile barely lights up at night. There hasn’t been enough sun light energy to store up in the solar cells.   It is colorless and invisible in the darkness.

John the beloved disciples introduces Jesus in his account of the Gospel.

“In Him was the life and the life was the light of men.” John 1:4

John uses the Greek word phos almost exclusively to describe this light of Jesus.  It refers to Jesus, the one being manifested. In  biblical terms, it is  “divine illumination to reveal  and impart life through Christ.” (Strong’s #5457)  John understood that the life of Jesus is the Light coming into this world which alone can  bring men out of the darkness. The two cannot be separated. He continues in verse 9:

“…that was the true Light which gives light  to every man coming into the world.”

God calls us to be children of Light through his Son.  Ephesians 5: 14 deepens the connection. Light is life; darkness is death.

“So it is said, Wake up, you Sleeper! Arise from the dead and Christ will give you life.”

Why is it that so many times we lose the light Jesus  bestows freely and instructs us  to share with others? When the rains rain  or fog  covers the valley or skies darken with angry black clouds,  why do we forget so readily that the Light abides within us and no darkness can withstand Him? Today as believers are relentlessly  hammered  and pursued by this present darkness,  is it Jesus whose Light has failed? Perish the thought!  It’s that  our faces are turned away from the Son, from His Word, from His promises, from His  life for us.   In so doing, we slip back into  very deadly  sleep.  

The humble sunflower always turns its awkward head  into the sun to grow its concentrically imbedded seeds.   It’s  a flower created for light which will procreate more of its own kind.  As the sunflower, so are we. And just as my solar  mobile  is designed to fill up with solar power,  we cannot be light infused without the constant phos of Jesus Christ.  Since God calls us His children of light, rejoice,  that we are so called!