Monday, 3/18/13
The opening of today’s Gospel presents a dramatic scene. For
the full week of the Feast of Tabernacles the people of Jerusalem abandoned
their homes to live in palm frond huts recalling their ancestors’ forty-year
traverse of the Sinai Desert. Just for that week, recalling the pillar of flame
that led them through the desert, they lit an immense lamp towering over the
Court of the Gentiles.
There was a feeling of sadness running over the crowd on the
last day of the week when that lamp was extinguished for the year. It was at
that moment that Jesus cried out, “I am the light of the world, whoever follows
me will not walk in darkness.”
As to what way Jesus can be the light for us, we might
ponder two Scripture passages. One is Psalm 36 where we read:
In your light we see
the light. (When he is the light that aids our thinking we are able to see
the light that is the right answer.)
The other is Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, 5: 8-9:
Live as children of
the light, for light produces every kind of goodness, justice and truth. (Jesus
is speaking metaphorically when he says he is the light. This verse tells us
that he uses light as a metaphor for goodness, justices, and truth.)
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