I’ve caught a bit of Brian Cox’s latest BBC TV series, ‘Solar System’ which is being shown at the moment. I’m sure he enjoys travelling to far flung places around the world to illustrate a point and of course, the CGI images of Titan, Ganymede and IO are remarkable, even if they are points of human imagination as opposed to being based on visual, empirical evidence. I particularly enjoyed the latest episode which saw the deployment of ‘space helicopters’ travelling through the atmosphere of barren planets as opposed to traversing rocky landscapes on moon buggies.
One of the key features through his series is light and how light/energy makes all the difference. We all enjoy days when they are light-filled, full of sunshine – we get a spring in our step and some of the days this past week have seen the autumn foliage in all its magnificent beauty as the light has shone and the breeze has gently blown.
Of course, as of this Sunday we will have darker nights – yes, it’s the time of the year when the clocks go back – we gain an extra hour of sleep but lose an hour of daylight. For most of us, we cope with this, even if we have to take a little more care and caution venturing out at night. One of my former bosses used to suffer from SAD syndrome – seasonally affected disorder – which meant that the long winter days caused a deterioration in his mental health and overall well-being. He eventually moved to Atlanta, Georgia – the deep south of the USA so that he could have more consistent light levels all across the year and it transformed his life. We all need light to survive and thrive.
This theme of light is found all over the Bible and is central to our faith as Christians. At Breakfast Church we’ll be exploring it in a bit more depth – looking at the creative work of God, thinking about the words we read at the start of the Bible, ‘Let there be light’ and how this creative intervention by God the Father is expressed through Jesus who describes himself as ‘the Light of the World’. Finally, we’ll be closing our time together by pondering of what it means to ‘Walk in the Light’ – encouragement we read about to help us navigate the ups and downs of our journey of faith and life.
In preparing for Sunday I came across a phrase that I’d missed or maybe read and not fully appreciated. It’s from Luke’s Gospel and is Jesus talking about the eye and our body being light. He says this, ‘See to it then, that the light within you is not darkness.’ Luke 11 v 35 (NIV). Interesting to ponder on that and to make sure we know and can feel the light and energy of Jesus Christ within us, radiating out. Let us be guided into a light filled, fun and joyful place.
Revd Paul