10 April 2013 - lighter than error

10 April 2013 - lighter than error

Look to him that you may be radiant with joy,
and your faces may not blush with shame.

Joy radiates from him.  All that we have to do is tilt our gaze toward that light and it will begin to transform us.  Even though we have much to be ashamed of his light will actually erase this rather than bringing it into a sharper focus.  What can happen to darkness in light but to disappear. We lift our gaze to Jesus in sacramental confession and we find ourselves not condemned but forgiven.


And this is the verdict,
that the light came into the world,
but people preferred darkness to light,
because their works were evil.

Let us not prefer the darkness.  Let us bask in the radiant presence of the Light of the World.  This does involve a separation from the works of darkness with which all of us have been complicit.  It involves an act of looking toward the light and thereby acknowledging that we ourselves are not that light and that we indeed live in darkness to one degree or another.

People may seek us in the dark places where they expect us to be but we will not be there.  The things which once held us captive no longer can.  Looking at us from the outside will only reveal further mystery.  There is no natural explanation for the freedom we now enjoy.  The world tries to throw us back into its prison but it can no longer keep us bound.


“We found the jail securely locked
and the guards stationed outside the doors,
but when we opened them, we found no one inside.”

We can reach a place where the things which once ensnared us no longer slow us down.


“The men whom you put in prison are in the temple area
and are teaching the people.” 

They are teaching firstly just by their presence when the world expects that they should be in prison.  This seems like a lot to take in for those of us that are still in the gray areas between light and shadow.  We aren't living in the full blessings which the LORD has for us yet.  We aren't living free from the oppression of darkness.  Is the light really all that it promises?  Will it really liberate rather than accuse and condemn?


Taste and see how good the LORD is;
blessed the man who takes refuge in him.