While we can pop into a shop to buy a light bulb, a candle, a lantern—something that can emit light—it is instructive that no market or vendor sells anything that can give off darkness. This is because darkness is simply the absence of light. The only way to darken a room, for example, is to block out the light or switch off the source of light. And yet, darkness can seem very real.
The world can often feel so dark, and this feeling is not attributable to sunlight not reaching the Earth. Many have struggled with dark thoughts. Others may feel that certain actions and decisions that affect them cast a pall of darkness over everything. But Christ Jesus, addressing his disciples in his well-known Sermon on the Mount, assures them that they are the light of the world (see Matthew 5:14–16). And that light which was shining through them, their spiritual nature and character, is in reality shining through everyone. We may wonder, then, how to see, experience, or feel this light, especially since, if it is indeed present, it should dispel a sense of darkness.
The Apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, gives an answer: “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6). Does this not show that the light inherently present in everyone, exemplified as it was in Jesus, is the Christ?
