WHEN THE LAMP FLICKERS
Scripture Reading: John 8: 12-20
Psalm 19:105 Your Word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. (Text)
This text is in heartfelt gratitude to God by one who has discovered the fulfilment of the Divine’s promise to accompany all like him on life’s journey. Although The Word precedes the fulfilled promise to this person, regardless, that Word is a sacred covenant between himself and God. Time and again, The Word arrives like an unseen presence, offering to lead to still waters and green fields. Consequently, souls staggering under torturing emotions become peaceful and serene once more. The Word is a medium from outside a self to be light in the deepest darkness, threatening to take one’s soul hostage.
In the final analysis, however, those who testify of any permanence of the experience of The Word BEING The Lamp that brightens their way are far fewer than those who sadly wish that ‘ The Lamp’ would never flicker. It is sad but true that even many churchgoers hearing the text, “Your Word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path,” long for more revealing evidence for themselves and concerning their efforts to change a hurting world. Is it not the flickering of the Lamp that induces such uncertainty?
The Old Testament is rife with images of humans caught in diverse situations that flip quickly between celestial light leading them and the dense darkness of a moonless night enveloping them.
Job, once a wealthy man of respect, was regarded as a man of deep faith. In time, Job becomes tragically forsaken by family and friends. In extreme poverty, he sits alone, reduced to a heap of human misery, and finally, his wife, deeply pained by his condition, advises him to “curse God and die”.(Job 2:9)
But not for long does the “Dark Night of The Soul Prevail!” Instead, the Creator of light offers Job His steady hand to restore that flickering Lamp, and Job responds, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him”. (Job 13:15)
Long after the stream of time flowed through the land of UZ, where Job expressed his inspiring faith, God, seeing the complexities of an ever-changing world, responded. And, The Word, which God gave to light our way through this world, proved insufficient. Subsequently, The WORD “BECAME FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US” in the man Jesus.
But still, this world remained a rich environment for this human experience of The Flickering Lamp. On one occasion, there is a celebration for the glory of the lighted mind, and in the next moment, the fearsome darkness of the Flickering Lamp invades. The contradiction continued even though The Word, the Lamp given to light the human pathway, came in Jesus. A haunting question, dripping like molten lead on a naked brain, persisted: “What difference did Christ’s coming to dwell among humankind make? The Lamp of certainty still flickered!
Thomas was one of twelve chosen by Jesus to be one of His disciples. The scant material available concerning Thomas portrays him as one of solid loyalty and unwavering devotion. Jesus’ tenderness and patience were the hallmarks of this relationship. However, Thomas sought to deepen his understanding of Jesus more than once when confusion threatened to breed doubt. On one occasion, when Jesus informed His disciples of His forthcoming return to His Father and foretold them that they would later join Him there, Thomas intervened, “We do not know where you are going; therefore, how can we know the way”?
There it is! The flickering Lamp!
Purely earthy limitations blind Thomas in his search to understand faith’s awesome mysteries. Every day’s journeying with Jesus intensified his desire to live like Him! Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6).
With leaden steps, Thomas’ friends rendezvoused to share one another’s incapacitating grief over their crucified Lord. Thomas was missing from that company. He wasn’t there when “The Risen Son” electrified the atmosphere of the Upper Room. All restraint was abandoned! The whole world was alive, hailing the heavenly message, “He IS RISEN”!
But Thomas wasn’t there!
So, the others told him!
“I won’t believe it,” Thomas replied, “Until I see Him myself and feel the print of the nails, I will not believe it!!
Darkness threatened to extinguish the light in Thomas’soul! The Lamp Flickered!
‘But what made the undeniable change in his close friends’? Thomas wondered. They each glowed as though they reflected a light fixed internally. But the darkness for Thomas only grew deeper, until that night, sometime later, when they were all together again. And, Thomas was also there! Suddenly, Jesus, The Risen One”, was there with them!
Then Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and look at my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Thomas replied, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:27-29).
There was a noticeable brilliance in the light that shone in the world that night. And, to this hour, hidden in our malignant doubts and fears, the ever-present Christ reveals Himself as the master over the experience of our flickering lamps.
The Prophet Isaiah wrote a most revealing Word for his people, Israel, worthy of remembrance still:
“I will give you the treasures of darkness
And hidden riches of secret places,
That you may know that I, the Lord,
Who calls you by your name,
I Am the God of Israel”. (Isaiah 45: 3)
A Prayer To Follow This Meditation
Father, my Father,
in Your hands is the indispensable gift of light that first shone through the dark abyss during creation. At Your command, the light revealed the innumerable possibilities hidden in that darkness. Among those possibilities, You fashioned humankind in Your image, to share Your creative desire to enlighten their habitation to resemble Heaven, the home from whence they came. Consequently, You gave them Your Word to be a lamp for their feet and a light to shine upon their path.
But in time, humans deliberately chose darkness over light” (John 3:18-20). “The Lamp flickered”.
FatherYou responded to the darkness, “and the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us”. But as the light increased, so did the human desire for darkness. The darkness deepened until the day a Cross was set with a sickening thud on Golgotha. “And darkness covered the whole land”.
But now, twenty centuries after, this thunderous chorus echoes through heaven and earth:
” Hallelujah! GHRIST IS RISEN”! And although our lamps of faith and action still flicker occasionally, it is not without the embedded certainty that when our Lamp in this world flickers, “The Light of The World ” is never far behind!
This very night, as dense darkness of hatred and war creeps over the world’s horizon, it’s time for the world’s inhabitants to reflect the Light of the One who dwells within each of us.
For Your Love’s sake and for Your world, we pray. Amen.
Hymn: Let There Be Light
Editorial Notes
I wish to acknowledge the outstanding photography in this post as the work of a Newfoundland photographer
Ray Mackey. It is used here with much pride and many thanks.