The Light has come — embrace Him in your heart, and display Him in your life.
And he said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
The following is a transcript of the above sermon.
How much does it cost to light one room in your home? A touchy subject, I know. But as we grumble and complain about energy bills, it can be easy to lose sight of we are rather privileged in this time and age to be able to access light as easily and, yes, as cheaply as we can. In days past, light was not something you could flip a switch and have a given that it was going to be there. You could not go down to Home Depot and pick up a light bulb and plug it in and think that, okay, now I am going to have a room that is lit.
No, you had to provide for light in your room with candles or with oil. Very expensive, even as you can think about not that long ago, relatively long ago, but not that long ago as whale oil was used as a resource for light and for other types of fuel. We know that it was rather expensive, rather costly.
It burned clean, but it could cost about five to ten percent of an entire household's income to keep their homes lit. Light was costly then, and that is to say nothing about in times even prior to when whale oil was around. I am trying to remember.
It's probably an apocryphal story, but I am trying to remember a story from this past week of Jonathan Edwards, the great preacher and revivalist who would stay late up into the night burning candles and burning candles, much to the exasperation of his wife who said, we cannot afford these candles. Staying up late into the evening was not something that most people did. It was expensive.
It'd be like taking your dryer and leaving it on all day. We would not do that. That would run up the energy bill far beyond what we could afford.
Well, the same is true for candle light, for oil light. As we think about light, it is rather a costly thing and not something to be taken for granted, and that is something we need to keep in mind as we come to our passage this morning and consider Jesus' words about this lamp, he says. A lamp, he describes.
And it is important we understand that as we are talking about lamps and light, we are not talking about something that is , you could go down to Home Depot and grab it. You can buy it. It's a costly thing.
It's also a valuable thing. Something that Jesus says that no one's going to hide under a basket, under a bushel, under a bed. They're going to put it out there.
If it is there, it is there to shed light. And the same is true of God's Word. God's Word, again, in this day and age, we do not remember how expensive it used to be to produce copies of God's Word.
The handwritten manuscripts, the codices that had to be produced. Nowadays, we print them. We can print them in China.
You can print them. It's ironic that you can print them in China. They will not want you to read them in China, but you can print them in China and bring them over here.
And yet, the mass quantities of Bibles we produce, maybe some of you in this room have multiple Bibles on your shelf. You know, a pastor ends up, what do you give a pastor for his birthday or for Christmas? You give him a Bible, . So I have myriads of Bibles on my shelves.
But how often are they read? The costliness, the value of God's Word shining a light into our hearts, into our minds. That is something about what these parables are about here in our passage this morning. I like the way that one commentator puts it, R.T. France.
This little section here that we are looking at in Mark's Gospel contains two short parables on revelation and response. On God's revelation, what He is doing, and how we respond to that. There are different ways to divide verses 21 through 25, believe it or not.
Some men even preach two to three sermons on these verses. I am not that guy. But in any case, these passages here, these verses, 21 to 25, contain a few different clauses, a few different, you could say, pithy statements, sayings.
And it is easy to think, well, these are nice little sayings, little proverbial statements, but to miss the plain point that Jesus is saying here. Looking at these two sections, you can see there is two basic sections here in these verses. The first contains a parable, I could say a parable or a statement, a saying, a metaphor perhaps, about a lamp.
Then the second contains a parable about a measure, a measuring basket, a basket they used in the ancient Near East to measure roughly two gallons worth, a little less than two gallons worth of grain or of some other measurement. But it would be a mistake to take these two, the lamp and the measuring basket, as two distinct parables. They're not distinct parables.
They go together, they complement one another. Jesus is intentional about this. For one thing, the parables are almost identical in length.
They share a similar structure. There's clearly something common between these two statements that Jesus makes here. An opening statement followed by two supporting, compare and contrast statements.
What's more, Jesus seems to be saying something unique in the way he is laying these two parables, the lamp and the basket, side by side. Now, this is not the only time Jesus is going to use statements like, with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. It's not the only time Jesus uses the imagery of a lamp shining forth or light shining forth.
He talks about this famously in the Sermon on the Mount, chapter five and then chapter seven of Matthew's gospel. And there, to take chapter seven, with the measure you use, it'll be measured unto you. There, Jesus clearly is warning his audience about judging others.
Be careful how you judge another person, for that you yourself will be judged by the same standard. And so Jesus was talking about that there. He said, the measure you use, it will be measured unto you.
Is that what Jesus is talking about here, though? The parable here has the same words as Matthew's gospel, but here in Mark, Jesus is using them for a different purpose. It's important to get this. Make sure your ears are open to this.
Don't import what you remember from the Sermon on the Mount if the Sermon on the Mount. Judge not, lest ye be judged. Oh, that is what Jesus is talking about here.
That is not the point that Jesus is making here, though he does use the same terminology. Here, when we are studying the Bible, it is important to remember that context does make a difference. Otherwise, we might accidentally import the wrong ideas into a passage.
We get the right doctrine into the wrong text. You could think of it as reaching for the salt shaker when you meant to grab the sugar. And in the same way as that outcome, you would have a less than desirable result.
And so we do not want to read the Bible importing ideas into it. We wanna know what is God saying here in Mark's gospel here? The parables in verses 21 through 26 are not about judging others. They're , in matter of fact, about the standard of all judgment, of right and wrong, of light and of darkness, and of your response to that standard.
That is what these parables are about, the standard and your response to him. Parable of the lamp, the parable of the measure, these could be considered the parables of the light that has come into the world and how we respond. In this way, that first parable says, in essence, this is what's happening.
This is what God is doing. The lamp parable is what God is doing in the world. The second parable then implicitly asks, so what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? What God is doing, what you are gonna do about it, what you must do about it, told to us in two parables about a measuring basket and about a lamp.
And so we are going to take those in turn. Those are our two points this morning, the lamp and the measuring basket.
First, let's look together at the lamp.
And so here we find Jesus making this statement. He says, there is nothing hidden. Nothing, he says, hidden, except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light.
Now, when we are reading this, one true doctrine that we can think about is God is omniscient. And so as we read this passage, we think, well, certainly there is nothing that can be hidden that is not hidden to God. And , Jesus is going to use these words in another place in the Synoptic Gospels, in Matthew, Mark, Luke, the Synoptic Gospels, he is going to use these words to describe how we should not be hypocrites.
What's a hypocrite? A hypocrite is someone who pretends to be one way outwardly and is another way inwardly. I am one way in public, I am another way in private. I do things in the light that I do not do in the dark.
That is a hypocrite. And Jesus says to the hypocrites that, understand that ething that is hidden is going to be revealed. God knows all things and he is going to expose all things.
And that is certainly true. There's not a thing you can do that is secret from God. There's not a thing that you can do that will not be revealed on the last day.
But that is not exactly what Jesus is getting at here. He says, nothing is hidden unless to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light. The way Jesus is using these words here is almost a sense of purpose.
Something was hidden so it would be made manifest. Something was secret so it would therefore then come to light. This gets at the heart of what we have been talking about in terms of parables, these dark sayings, these riddles, these pictures that Jesus gives us that he tells us are given as judgment to some but blessing to others.
They're given as puzzles to some to their condemnation because they will not hear. And yet to those who receive God's grace, they will hear and they will understand. As Jesus is coming with parables, he is saying plainly to us that he is coming not to keep things a big secret.
This is a radical departure from other mystery religions in the time period, in the first century. We even have secret societies today and if you expose the secret, it kind of ruins the whole point, right? It's like, oh, there is gonna be a small select few that have a certain kind of knowledge. That is not what Jesus is having in view here.
Now he is saying the thing that is hidden, that is to be held up. The thing that was secret, that is to be set forth to all so all may see and all may hear though indeed not all will understand. Something that was hidden is hidden no longer.
Jesus is saying this is happening. This is what God is doing. He is going to reveal something.
He is revealing something. A light is shining that once was secret.
What is that light Jesus is referring to? Some posit it is the light of the gospel.
It's the teaching of the gospel. Jesus has come and I think is a plausible interpretation. Jesus went to all of the cities.
He went to Capernaum. He went throughout Galilee. He is going to go eventually down to Jerusalem and proclaim the kingdom is here.
The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, believe the gospel, the good news. Some others think that it is referring more generally to the light of God's word.
God's word shines a light into our hearts and shows us what God desires for us and wants for us and what he is doing for us but I think we understand a little bit more about the nature of this light when we consider the lamp that Jesus speaks of here and this is unique to Mark. Luke has a parallel account. In Luke chapter eight he has a parallel account that is similar to Mark's telling of it here but Luke changes the verbiage a little bit but that little bit makes a large difference and our English translations have trouble capturing it but I am going to read it to you as it is in the Greek.
Jesus said to them, is the lamp come to be under a basket or under a bed? Is the lamp come? Now, I haven't been to Lamps Plus but I do not think there are walking lamps that you can buy there. Maybe nowadays there are, I am not sure. A lamp that walks into your room, follows you around, that'd be creepy but the lamp that Jesus has in view here is a walking lamp.
The word erchomai, to come into or to go, to walk, is the word he uses here to describe what this lamp is doing and notice he says it is not a lamp, as our translation has it, but it is the lamp. Is the lamp come to be brought under a basket? So it is almost like, Jesus, are you telling some kind of bar joke here? Like a lamp walks into a bar or something? Like what's going on here? What is this lamp that is walking around, that is coming in? What are you referring to here? Well again, it is plausible he is referring to the gospel. That is certainly an interpretation you can take but I am more persuaded by what some other commentators have noted.
The lamp that has come, are you going to hide it or, it is masculine , are you going to hide him? Friends, it is Jesus that is the lamp. It's Jesus that is the light. As John testifies in the gospel, he is the light who has come into the world though men prefer darkness rather to light, he is the light that enlightens e man.
That brings light and life. E good thing that you enjoy, whether you believe in Jesus or not, comes to you from God in heaven through Jesus Christ. He is, as we confess in the creed, light of light.
All things were made through him and without him not anything was made that was made. In him was life, John says, and the life was the light of men. The light, Jesus said the light has come.
The light is walking, the light is walking in your midst. Will you put it beneath a stand? Will you put it beneath your bed? Will you hide him or will you put him out to be displayed? In fact, Jesus is not asking them that question here though he will ask a similar question in Matthew's gospel but here he is not saying what are you going to do with this light? Here he is saying I am gonna tell you what God's doing with this light. There's a light that has come, it is not come to be hidden.
The light that has come has not been put under a bed or put under a measuring basket. The light has come to be put on a stand, to be set forth so they may see. The light of the nations.
The passage that we didn't read from Isaiah chapter 42 but if you have a Bible handy, I want you to flip over to Isaiah 42 there and consider the prophecy. This has been God's plan all along in the Old Testament. In Isaiah chapter 42, look there beginning at verse one.
He says, behold, my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights, I've put my spirit upon him. A bruised reed he will not break, verse three. A faintly burning wick he will not quench.
He will not grow faint or be discouraged until he has established ice. I am the Lord, verse six. I've called you in righteousness.
He is speaking, the Lord is speaking to the Lord here. This is one of the glimpses of the Trinity in the Old Testament that we see. He says, I am the Lord.
I have called you, son, in righteousness. I take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you, Jesus, as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations.
It's quite a nice birthday present, is not it? Quite a nice gift. The lamp that walks in. The light that shines.
A light for nations to open eyes that are blind, Isaiah says, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison of those who sit in darkness. Do anybody sitting in darkness today? Do what it is like to sit in darkness? Jesus says the light has come to shine a light into that darkness. The lamp has come to be set forth.
Jesus says this. It's important to understand that when we think about Jesus, that he truly is a costly lamp. Coming into this world was not a light and blasé decision on God’s part, as if he said, “Okay, maybe I'll walk in and shine a little light here and there.”
No, he took a body to himself and a true human soul. He was hungry for you. He suffered for you. He dies on a cross, and as he is held up on a cross, there could not be a better lamp stand to shine what Christ came to do for you, to die for you, and there the sign hung. Here, pay attention.
This is the King of the Jews. The King has come. The light that gives life to e man, though spiritual life only to some.
To those who receive him, He gave the right and privilege, John says, to be called children of God who are born not of the flesh nor of the will of man, but are born of God.
This will not surprise you, if you have been reading through our study of Mark, and you have especially been in chapter four already, Jesus then proceeds with a statement, one that kind of is a pivot point between these two parables. He says there in verse 24, pay attention to what you hear.
Literally, he says, see and hear, see and hear what I am saying here. Pay attention to what you hear. Now, at this point, we are talking about Jesus being the light, the light who comes and gives us life, and in his stripes we are healed, as Isaiah will prophesy.
As he comes and dies in our place, we receive righteousness, forgiveness, ification. It's easy as someone up in the church, as I am one, perhaps some of you are, or for those who come to church Sunday after Sunday, it is easy for us to nod our heads in affirmation and say, uh-huh, yes, right? I've heard that before. Yes, Jesus dies.
Jesus lived the life that I could not. He died the death that I deserved. I get that.
I understand that. Politely, respectfully to say, yes, sir, and yet subtly, perhaps even imperceptibly, our minds and our hearts have shifted into neutral. Does this knowledge affect you that Jesus Christ, the light of light, God of God, humbled himself, made himself a laughingstock, a nothingsville? He came and died naked, yes, naked on a cross, the light of the world, and he was raised on the third day, and yet sometimes we live as if that is one fact in the midst of a constellation of facts.
That happened as much as I went to the grocery store on Wednesday. But Jesus is saying here, be careful how you hear, because what I am telling to you about a light that is being made manifest must make a difference in your life. That is why he keeps using this word, as he used it back in the parable of the sower, hear, hear, listen, hearing, hear.
Why? Because there are many who hear with their ear, but will not understand. There are many who will nod in affirmation, the crowds even who surround Jesus this day, who say, yes, Jesus, that sounds good, Jesus, I agree with that, Jesus, and yet their hearts remain unchanged. Their lives remain unchanged.
Outwardly, they may confess, oh God, have mercy upon us, and yet inwardly, they are proud. They're proud, because they are not depending upon the one who is the light. They are still wandering around in the darkness.
It's that chilling scene in Lewis's The Last Battle, where they find at the end of all things, it is kind of Lewis's bizarre eschatology, and there is some strange stuff going on in The Last Battle, in the Chronicles of Narnia series, but there is that one chilling scene where you have the dwarves there, and they are sitting in the dark, what they think is the dark, when , the light is all around them. All they need to do is open their eyes and see it, but they refuse to see it. As Jesus said, indeed, they may see, but they do not perceive.
Indeed, they may hear, but they do not understand. So Jesus says, and one of the ways that he, by his grace, makes us understand is by repeatedly reminding us, listen to what I am saying, understand what I am doing, hear who I am, and who I am for you, Jesus says. It's something that God has been telling us even back in the Old Testament, Isaiah chapter six, we read that last week.
Remember, God said there to Isaiah, these people's hearts are going to experience constant exposure to my word through your mouth, Isaiah, and their hearts are going to go dull. My word is going to harden them. They're going to hear it, they are going to hear it, and they are going to hear it, and it is not going to change them.
In fact, they are going to get worse, he says, because they've rejected me, and so I am rejecting them. Isaiah 29, God says, I have no patience for this kind of outward profession worship. I do not care if you can mouth the Nicene Creed on a Sunday.
I do not care if you can sing the hymns and the psalms. He says, these people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips while their heart is far from me. Deluded heart, God calls them.
One who feeds on ashes, Isaiah 44 says. He feeds on ash. A deluded heart has led him astray.
He cannot deliver himself. You see, it is only those who understand they've come to an end of themselves. They can't provide for themselves.
They can't save themselves. It's only those who truly have ears to hear. If you think you have a flashlight, you have no need for a lamp.
You can shine your flashlight. You can walk around the room. You can walk amidst the darkness.
If you think that you have a room full of lights already, what's one more little lamp going to do? But if you are in pitch darkness, I have no hope. I have nothing in myself. I can maybe have a good life.
I can have a nice family. I can have a job that pays the bills, that keeps the lights on. But I have nothing at the end of it all if I do not have Christ.
That is the one who will hear and understand. The one who recognizes it. The one who is called to his senses.
Jesus is calling us to hear deeply, not simply let His words coast across the surface of our hearts. But deep hearing requires humility; it requires the awareness that, as Father Cavanaugh said to Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger, “There is a God, and I’m not Him.”
“I’m going to listen to God,” says the one who hears deeply and humbly. “I’m going to hear what he has to say. And even when it’s hard, and even if I do not understand, I am going to know it is true. And I am going to ask him to give me understanding.”
Further along in our study of Mark, we are going to come to chapter 7 and a healing miracle of Jesus unstopping a man's deaf ears, physically but also spiritually, showing us how he’s come to change our hearts, humbling us so we may be exalted.
But Jesus also says, in stark terms here, that there are the two kinds of people that exist in this world: Those who have not and those who have. Those who have not and those who have.
If you want to think about what Jesus is saying here, what does it mean to have and have more and then to have even what you have to be taken away? That does not seem to make a whole lot of sense.
But think of it a bit like another parable Jesus tells if you are familiar with the parable of the talents. You know that story. Here's a short version.
A master gives three servants money, talents. He gives them gold. He gives them silver.
He gives them riches. He gives them to him as he is going away on a journey. And one servant invests them and receives a return.
Another servant invests them and receives a return. The third servant buries it in the ground. You're given a treasure and you buried it away.
Master comes back, rewards the first servant. Well done, good and faithful servant. Rewards the second servant.
Well done, good and faithful servant. He rewards them for their zeal. Notice that is what's going on here.
It's a zeal for what has been given to you. And yet the third servant, he is told, what on earth have you done? You could have put it in the bank. You would have at least gotten interest there.
Instead you took my treasure and you treated it like trash. I saw no interest. I saw no growth.
I saw nothing. You did nothing with what I gave you and so you are going to have nothing now. And that servant is ultimately taken away and he is ultimately cast away, cast out.
That is something about what Jesus is saying here. The one who has not, even what he has, will be taken away. What is he referring to there? He is referring to e man, e woman, e boy, e girl who can hear Jesus speaking now, who can hear my voice now, here preaching, preaching God's word, who has a Bible in their hands, who understands what Jesus is saying, or at least outwardly hears what Jesus is saying, much will be required of you.
Much will be required of you. It's a dangerous thing, as I said a few Sundays ago, to step into a church because then you have removed an excuse. You're hearing God's word being preached, being read.
You're hearing the saints pray and praise God and you are seeing the sacrament of the Lord's Supper going forth. That is why we fence the table and say, if you are not sure what's going on here, do not take this because you'll be held accountable for this. Because Jesus says, in the final estimate, you didn't do anything with it.
If it coasted along your heart but you didn't truly receive and rest in this, if you didn't produce fruit from this, if you didn't obey what I am saying, then all that you have, all that you ever had, that was good, that was beautiful, that was pleasant, that was lovely, even in the context of the church, will be taken from you. E last shred of grace. You know, everybody in this world enjoys God's grace. The fact that we exist and have life is itself a blessing from God, that we take it for granted. And yet Jesus is saying that those who think they have something now, even what they think they have, as Luke says in his account, those, that which he thinks he has, life, light, understanding, strength, vitality, family, career, will all be taken away from him.
But Jesus also says, the measure you use, it will be measured to you and still more will be added to you.
The one who has more will be given. Again, this measure, this parable of a measure, it is a measuring basket, not the same word as a basket up there in verse 21, but a similar word, a synonym. Jesus is doing a little pun here.
He said, are you going to take the lamp? Are you going to cover me with a basket? Or are you going to be rich and lavish toward me? Are you going to be soaking me in? Are you going to be soaking me up? Are you going to be gathering me in and overflowing with me? Are you going to be filled with me? Or are you going to be stingy? The measure you use, it will be measured to you. One who is rich toward me, Jesus says, I will be rich toward him and beyond what you were toward me. Still more, he says, will be added unto you, beyond what you could ask or think.
Jesus says, there is no one in this world who by giving their life for me will not receive double, treble, quadruple that in the kingdom as it comes. And so Jesus didn't die on a cross so you would agree with him. He died so you would be with him and walk with him.
Love him, long for him, obey him, hear from him. It's an oxymoron. It's a contradiction to claim to be a Christian and not to want to live like Jesus.
Not to want to love like Jesus. Not to want to hear from Jesus. You find this happening from time to time.
Christians who think, I do not need church. I do not need the Bible. I've got the Spirit.
Where does the Spirit speak? He speaks in his word, in his sacraments. He speaks in the context of the church, which Jesus calls his bride. But the one who is rich toward Jesus, who loves Jesus, who longs for Jesus, who's in Jesus e day, in the word of Jesus, praying in Jesus' name.
Still more, he says, will be added to you. E blessing you have in this life, it is a bare kernel, Paul says. This body is a bare kernel of what we have ahead of us.
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart can understand what God has in store for you, who walk now in Christ by faith and not by sight. That is the irony of it all. Faith is intrinsically a soul sight, not a visible, not a tangible, not a photons passing through the air kind of thing.
Faith is something that looks to what is unseen, yet no less real. Truth works its way into your life. And so we find this admonition continually, the refrain of Jesus teaching throughout the New Testament, the apostolic doctrine.
We believe in the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. Well, this is the apostolic teaching, to walk in the light as he is light. John tells us in 1 John 1, this is the message we have heard from him, and we proclaim it to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Understand what Jesus, what John, it is Jesus saying that there, . It's John's words, but it is Jesus' word.
It's the word of God, and Jesus is telling you there, look, if you make a practice of sinning, if you live in sin mode, if you let God's word kind of coast across your heart, then you are a liar if you claim to be practicing the truth, if you claim to be a Christian. But I love how Jesus includes in this same breath, he says, but if we walk in the light as he is light, we have fellowship with one another, and what? Some of you even have this memorized, I am sure. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us, because we all have a little darkness in us, do we not? Lack of zeal, sin that clings so close, we do what we do not want to do, we do not do what we ought to do, what we know we ought to do, we do not live as Jesus lived, we do not love as Jesus loved, and yet we are told those who walk in the light, who trust in Christ for their salvation, they are the ones who can confess their sins, knowing that he is faithful and .
Verse 9, to forgive us our sins, and what? To cleanse us. Light is pure, unmixed. Jesus is the light who is shining into the world, and he cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
But he continues to admonish us, to warn us, to call us, pay attention to what you hear, understand where it is you are walking. Romans 13, besides this the time, the hour has come for you to wake from your sleep. Wake up, Jesus says.
Paul says in Romans chapter 13, salvation, by which he means the revelation of Christ coming again in glory to judge the living and the dead. Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone, the day is at hand, Paul says.
So let's cast off these works of darkness, let's cast off this sinfulness, let's cast off this unchristlikeness, cast it all away, Christian, and put on, he says, the armor of light. Let's walk properly, as in the daytime, not in orgies, not in drunkenness, not in sexual immorality, not in sensuality, not in quarreling, not in jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, the sinful flesh, to gratify its desires. So not an early church father, but a little bit later ancient father, the venerable Bede, Saint Bede, who said, it is as if Jesus is saying in these parables, in the parables of the light, it is as if he is saying, do not be ashamed of the gospel, but amidst the darkness, in his context certainly the darkness of persecution, raise the light of the word of God upon the candlestick of your own body, keeping fixedly in your mind that day when the Lord will throw light upon the hidden places of darkness.
For then everlasting punishment awaits your adversary, but everlasting praise awaits you. We play the long game. We know what we have ahead of us.
We have a light that is shining in the world, and Jesus says, and I will be made manifest. I will have my church. I will have my bride.
And we operate as a church under the assurance that he will build his church, that he will tend his flock like a shepherd, that he will gather his lambs in his arms. The question to you this morning is, do you want to be a part of that? Are you going to engage in that? Are you going to be involved in that? Because if you are, you will be blessed beyond measure, beyond any measuring basket you could possibly build, you will be blessed.
Because while this Light may be costly, he offers himself freely to us.
There's nothing that we need to pay into this. There's no store we need to buy this from.
All we need to do is simply by faith lay hold of the promise of Christ. He is the one who's paid the debt. He is the one who paid the penalty.
All the cost was put upon him, and yet we are the ones who get all the value, the value of light, the value of, as the Bible calls it, the realms of endless day, unceasing day, light forever and ever and ever. No darkness there, no mournful tear shall be there. We need to live today longing for that day.
If we live as people of God, people of Christ, people of light, we long for that day and we cast away any sin that clings so close. Because it is nothing to us. It's darkness.
It's like choosing a crawlspace over a kingdom. It's like choosing a little tiny shack instead of a great, lavish, well-furnished, well-lit palace. Who would make that choice? No one in their right mind.
And yet, as we realize in the parable of the soils, it is only by the Holy Spirit that any of us will have that mind of Christ our Savior. So as we draw near to the Lord's table in a moment, we need to have that kind of heart, praying as we sing so a few different times over the past year, may the mind of Christ my Savior who is the light dwell in me, be in me from day to day, that we may draw near to him by faith now so one day faith will no longer be necessary. Faith ends, hope ends, but love continues forever as Christ will be made manifest to all and in all who trust in him.
Amen.
