“The lamp of the body is your eye. When your eye is clear, your whole body, too, is filled with light.” Luke 11.34).
We think we glimpse the eternal when we reach the limits of our human nature. We pray every evening the words of the Psalmist: I lift up my eyes to the mountain, the high place where God resides, and He will come to my rescue and help in our needs. He will fill our eyes with His light, so that the truth of His Word guides us toward His immense goodness, safeguarded from all danger.
This is nothing less than the good news announced by Jesus, opening to us the limitless eternity; the true eternity that is not simply a getting out of the constrictions of time and matter, but a “Passover” in the truest sense, a passage to a new heaven and new earth. It is a view under a new light. It is an entrance into a clarity that only a generous and abundant completeness may bring.
It is the “place” where God is king. His kingdom. His will takes shape in our sight and view, and through the communion of obedience makes our will a participant in the creative power of the divine “let there be light” (Genesis 1.3). This creative power illuminates our entire body and mindset, our life, and all our deeds. His power takes body and shape in us, becoming a meeting of natures, of which the meeting of Adam with Eve in the story of creation is a metaphor (Genesis 2.23–24).
Our physical eyes are a bridge that our Lord Jesus uses to connect our entire human condition with the presence of God. A God who searches for us not only because He is the Creator of the entire universe and of us, but above all because He is the Savior of each and every individual, giving us the prophetic power to carry His Word through the communion of the Body and Blood of our Lord Christ. What is our response to this divine call?
What is our stance when Truth is revealed, when it comes to visit us in our daily routines? Do we meet the dawn of God in our lives with joy and excitement? Or do we try to illuminate our paths with depleted lamps?
Jesus uses the word “light” to signify the most effective means of recognizing God’s judgment. When someone’s deeds do not pursue good intentions, the preference is to walk in darkness and to shun the light so that the intentions and deeds may not become known (John 3.19–21), as Jesus summarized during the conversation with Nicodemus. Light is not God’s judgment, but it makes us see His judgment. God’s judgment is revealed in the realm of Light, not in that of darkness. God does not operate in darkness because His deeds are good, and when we act in communion with God, that is in accordance with His Laws, we become partakers of His totally good nature. That’s when our eyes become filled with God’s light, and our judgment gives light to our mind and entire human nature.
May your light be good, and may God rule in your eyes.