Yesterday, we acknowledged the necessity of the Word, from which all else was created. It is my hope that we felt drawn to The Living Word, affording His creative presence room in our hearts. There is another premise connected to Y’shua Jesus as the Living Word, and that is ‘light’. Consider Today’s Holy Nougat.
John 1:1, 3-4 CEB
[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
[3] Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word, nothing came into being. What came into being
[4] through the Word was life, and the life was the light for all people.
Word of Light: Life-giving Word
When we take into consideration that Jesus is the the creative Word Who gave expression to God’s thoughts and plans (‘… and God said, “Let there be …”,’ and it was), it doesn’t take much to further see Him as Life-giver. This is even more visible in Y’shua’s earthly ministry. There were instances when His spoken words effected healing and even restored life to others. Hence, we recall Him healing of the deaf and mute man with the word, ephphatha ‘be opened’ (see Mark 7:34). More readily in our memories might be Talitha cumi, ‘damsel arise’ (see Mark 5:41-42).
There are other instances, including the words given the man who had been bound for 38 years, which for many of us is an entire lifetime. Even more striking perhaps was the Roman centurion’s understanding of Y’shua as the Word of God and as healing grace. Respectful of Jesus’ spiritual authority and of his own status, the centurion asked of Y’shua to ‘just speak’, as he was confident in the power of Y’shua’s words.
Self-Check
How much confidence do we place in Y’shua as the Living Word?
Application
John not only referred to Y’shua as the Living (life-giving) Word, but he also alluded to Jesus as the ‘light for all people’. Like me, your thoughts might have returned to Genesis 1, to the first act of creation; or to the birth prophecies in Isaiah 9, which assert that those who walked in darkness have seen the great light. Those texts both give credence to John’s point. I suspect however, that there’s more to what John desired us to understand.
John’s assertion focuses on the life (zoe i.e., physical and spiritual source of existence) of Y’shua being radiance (illumination), guidance, and manifestation. In English, radiance is understood as ‘light or heat emitted or reflected …’ (Dictionary of Oxford Languages online). This suggests that Jesus emits or reflects God through His life. Or, as one scholar tells it, Y’shua is the ‘exact representation of [God’s] being (see Austin Burkhart’s How do we reflect God’s Radiance in our Worktifwe.org November 19, 2015). Hebrews 1:9 (NIV) corroborates John’s point by noting that the Son (Y’shua Jesus) is the ‘radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of God’s being’. In short, Y’shua is the Word of Light.
The question for us then as we pause here in our meditation is, ‘are we reflecting Christ’s light in our world?’ We continue our trekked tomorrow …
Point to Ponder
Where has Jesus radiated God’s glory in our personal stories?
