Now, brothers and sisters, we do not need to write you about times and dates. You know very well that the day the Lord comes again will be a surprise, like a thief that comes in the night. While people are saying, “We have peace and we are safe,” they will be destroyed quickly. It is like pains that come quickly to a woman having a baby. Those people will not escape. But you, brothers and sisters, are not living in darkness, and so that day will not surprise you like a thief. You are all people who belong to the light and to the day. We do not belong to the night or to darkness. So we should not be like other people who are sleeping, but we should be alert and have self-control. Those who sleep, sleep at night. Those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But we belong to the day, so we should control ourselves. We should wear faith and love to protect us, and the hope of salvation should be our helmet. God did not choose us to suffer his anger but to have salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus died for us so that we can live together with him, whether we are alive or dead when he comes. So encourage each other and give each other strength, just as you are doing now.
(1 Thessalonians 5:1-11)
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The imagery is pretty familiar: light. From the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible the imagery is there, present, all around, all the time. Light. It was the first thing created. “Let there be light,” God said. And there was light. As the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, God was a pillar of fire before them at night to give them light. Psalm 18 tells us that God turns all our darkness into light, and Psalm 76 affirms for us that God is “radiant with light.” Jesus calls himself the light of the world (a light that John’s Gospel tells us “shines in the darkness” and cannot be overcome) and then Jesus turns around and surprises us by calling us the light of the world! And Proverbs 13 tells us that “the light of the righteous shines brightly,” so that, through us, “the people walking in darkness [will see] a great light.” After all, as Jesus said, we are to “let [our[ light shine before others.” As I said, the Bible is full of references to light as an image of God and as an image for our faith. And, to me, one of the more intriguing things the Bible has to say about our relationship to light comes from Paul’s words that we read this morning from 1 Thessalonians: “You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.” Why do I find that so intriguing? Because it puts a slightly different spin on the image. No longer are we referred to as light, but as “children of light.” We’re fairly used to being called children of God, but I started to think about this phrase “children of light,” and I wondered - is it just another way of saying that we’re children of God? Is it the same thing? Or does it suggest something different still? What does it mean to be a “child of light?”
As I reflected on that imagery I found myself thinking about family of origin issues. It’s a simple concept: everyone has a family of origin. We all have in our past the people who shaped us and influenced us, and in many cases we become a reflection of that family of origin. Sometimes it’s for the better and sometimes it’s for the worse. After all, there are healthy families and there are unhealthy families and there are dysfunctional families and there are abusive families. Not all families of origin are positive - but all of us are products of our upbringings; products of all our experiences; influenced to some extent by all those who have in some way or another, big or small, touched our lives. As people of faith, we understand that we’re bound together by a common family of origin, and the family tree if you will are all the Christians who have touched us and influenced us. The historical record of our family is the Bible. Ultimately, as people of faith, the one we’ve been touched by most powerfully (I hope) is God revealed in Jesus. We call ourselves children of God; we’re also children of light - light being the first thing God called into existence; light being wisdom; light being knowledge of God and of God’s ways. And we’re touched by that spiritual family of origin; influenced in a certain direction by the God who called us into being and who called us to faith. We’re children of the light - descendants in a way of that first created thing.
What was going on in Thessalonica that Paul felt it was necessary to remind the Thessalonians Christians of their calling. I touched on it a bit last week. The Thessalonians (like many early Christians) were expecting the return of Christ in their own lifetime. And it hadn’t happened, and time was moving on, and people were beginning to wonder. Should we continue to wait. or should we give up on this and go back to our old ways before we knew Christ? And Paul’s instruction was that they should remember to live as children of light - always prepared, always observant, always watching and always watchful. Always believing that something better was coming. But Paul said that they were not just to be children of light; they were also to be children of the day. As children of light, Christians are to be watchful and prepared; as children of the day, Christians are to be aware that we’re being watched - we can’t hide in the darkness and live as if our faith makes no difference, because that will dishonour the Christ in whom we place our hope. We have to live this faith - not sit back and do nothing because Jesus will come back to set everything straight, and not give up because things aren’t being set straight fast enough to suit us. We are children of light and children of the day.
As children of light, who have come to understand the ways of God, we have to reflect the ways of God - just as our human family of origin makes us to some extent a reflection of our upbringing. Sometimes, in some cases, our spiritual family of origin has to overcome our human family of origin and set us on the right track, sometimes our spiritual family of origin just re-inforces what we’ve been brought up to believe and how we’ve been brought up to live. But as children of light and children of the day, we’re called to witness to the call of God and to reflect the way of Jesus to the world.
The way of Jesus is what brings light to those who walk in darkness of any kind: the darkness of sin, the darkness of loneliness, the darkness of grief, the darkness of abuse or violence, the darkness of rejection, the darkness of hatred or racism, the darkness of anything that tries to tell someone that they’re less important, less significant, less valuable and less loved by God than others. That’s the light Jesus brought to the lives of those he encountered. As children of light, we reflect that light into the dark corners of the world and the dark places in the lives of those we encounter.
It’s a bit simplistic, but I’ve heard Christians be compared to the moon. The brightest full moon shining on a pitch black night nevertheless has no light of its own. It only reflects the light of the sun back toward us. That’s what we do. We reflect the light of God back wherever we find darkness, and we live by it - believing that the way of Jesus will one day be the way of the world. Meanwhile, we wait, we watch, we witness, and we work - all as children of the light of God.
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