You are the light of the world.
Matt 5:14
Jesus called himself the light of the world. (John 8:12). The word used for world here is cosmos. Cosmos does not depict the physical world – only – but the order of the universe.
Jesus is not a physical source of light such as a lamp in this world, at least not in this time. We see in Revelation that there will be no sun nor moon as God is their light. The spiritual light broke through into our dimensions.
But Jesus is the light for all creation, including the vastness of the universe. Some scientist say that newer calculations point to an indefinite universe, some say that there are multiverses. Jesus is the light for all of it.
But is it truly Jesus?
Jesus is a historical person, walking the earth some 2000 years ago. He died, and though resurrected, is not here any longer.
Jesus on the other hand was the Christ. He is the Son of God, personified. And it is as Christ that he is the light of the world.
Why am I certain that this is the case? Because of above verse. Jesus calls us the light of the world.
That would either mean that every human being is the light of the world, or that whoever partakes of the Christ is.
I truly think it is both, in a way. As Jesus died for all of humanity, and we are the image of God, we all carry the possibility of being the light, but put it under a bucket because we are not aware of it.
To tap into that awareness, we need to recognise our participation in Christ.
Christ is not the last name of Jesus, nor is it only signifying Jesus as the anointed one. If so, Christ would be limited to the one and only Jesus, if he were the only one anointed, or divide humanity into anointed ones and un-anointed ones.
Christ is the body with its head, as Paul tells us. We are the body of Christ, and Jesus is the head. He is the center, the prototype, the leading and reigning part of us.
Jesus does not tell us that we are the vessels his light shines through. He does not make any prerequisites for us being the light, other than talking with his disciples who believed in him. But remember, this was pre-cross. He does not say that they will be the light of the world once they understood and had been endowed with power from above.
He tells them that they are the light of the order of the cosmos now. All of them.
Light makes things visible. Being light makes everything in its parameters visible.
This is true on a very basic level even for the physical world. We learn from quantum physics that matter behaves differently if observed than if not. The double slit experiment tells us that un-observed particles behave as waves of possibilities, as energy, while when observed they become particles and behave like matter.
Observing, shedding light upon something, makes it appear as form, while being formless before. Think of creation: God spoke – waves — and he saw — observed – that it was good.
God himself is formless. If he had form, there would be boundaries to him. But God is being itself. When observed, God is revealed. God is revealed by our observing.
Too often our observation is directed outwardly, into the already revealed physical world that would be called ge in Greek.
But Jesus tells us that we cannot see the Kingdom of God by observations. It is not by what we can see with our eye in the outer world. It is not even by obeying what has been revealed before. (The Greek is para: closely, and tereo: watch, guard, obey.)
It is by observing the order of the world. And we are not talking commands and instructions here, but the inner regime and system of how the world truly works, even why.
It is far more important, life-giving, and maturing to reveal the why and the spiritual how than the purely physical how.
Most people follow external signs. For them to be signs, others have observed and therefore revealed them. Following external signs is living life second hand. You are not a light of the world, you are a mirror reflecting the light shed by another.
Most believe that this is the way it should be, that we are to reflect the light Jesus shed. If so, he would not have said that we are the light. He would have called us mirrors reflecting or vessels containing.
The bible is a track record of the observations man made of God during a certain span of time.
If I shed beige, purple, red, or blue light on something, it will have a beige, purple, red, or blue appearance. It will be tainted by whatever light we use. The bible was written by people with certain world-views, a certain spectrum of light.
Cain shed beige light on God. He wanted to survive, and the acceptance of Abel by God (Cain did not distinguish between the offering and himself) was a threat. If he eliminated the one loved by God, God would love him instead.
Abraham shed a purple light. He saw God as the God of his family and tribe. God became the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Moses shed a red light. He saw God outperform the Egyptian gods in a powerful display, and killing the enemies of his people.
Moses also used blue light. God was the giver and source of law and order, hierarchy and obedience. To obey meant to belong.
All of the old testament has been written by people using their shades and colors of light, well, all the bible has.
Does God reveal himself through the bible? Of course! It might be tainted — like all those stories of a power-god fighting other gods and killing people. Maybe that is not God after all. Think of the shade of that monster you see in the twilight that, once other colors are added reveals to be your cloths on the chair.
God is willing to reveal more if new colors are shed for us to observe him in.
Those colors can be found in the bible, but they are hidden because the writers, the participants in the stories, as well as the readers only had access to a certain spectrum of colors.
The predominant color of the bible is blue. The old testament was put in writing during a phase of history that was driven by law. The new testament is usually interpreted by people with a similar worldview. It is but within the last 500 years that we added new colors to the spectrum and see what God hid in the bible from the beginning. We uncover new facets, and God reveals himself even more.
Obviously, much of what we uncover is buried under much contemporary color of the writers, and we are impressed by so many years of interpretation. Thus, the bible can only portray that much of the more colorful parts of God, and we need the Spirit. We need to observe God instead of his history.
God added new colors to our spiritual visual spectrum.
The orange view of the reformation allows us to see the magnificent scientist God is, creating a universe that is so fragile that even slight deviances in some parameters would have prevented us from existing. The orange light reflects a lot on creation itself, showing us creation as well as ourselves as wonderfully and excellently made. We need to know about creation and ourselves to value the creator even more, even if taking our focus away from God for a while.
A green light revealed that diversity has intrinsic value.
The newest colors added are yellow and turquoise. Yellow recognises that we should not stop looking at all the things that previous colors revealed, how valuable and important all those shades are to get a full picture. Keep what is good, and get rid of what is not.
Turquoise starts to show how everything is deeply connected and one.
It is no wonder to me any longer that God showed a rainbow to remind us of his love. Love is all-encompassing. And only when we use all colors of the rainbow to shed light and therefore reveal God observing, we can get to know him. This is a never ending story.
But once we realise that we are the light, that we are Christ, Christ will reveal himself to the cosmos in a second coming. Not as Jesus, but as Christ.