A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

Red, fleece gloves. Stylishly perfect for keeping my hands warm, except that they weren’t doing such a hot job on a snowy winter’s day in Yosemite National Park. After playing outdoor tourists one post-Christmas afternoon, my family and I piled into my dad’s sizeable Buick, and I tossed my gloves on the dash — the better to heat my icy digits in front of the air vent.

We drove through a tunnel on our way out of the park, chatting and laughing about the day’s joy. I happened to glance at my gloves and discovered that they had changed color. No longer red, they were now completely black. The sodium vapor lighting had dampened the color from my matching scarf and red-trimmed coat as well.

There was nothing I could do to make those gloves red again. Looking at them more closely did not bring back the color, nor did turning them inside out or shaking them. Color was restored only when we exited the tunnel into full-spectrum sunshine. Beautiful color flooded our car the instant we emerged from the strange yellow lighting.

What’s amazing to me is that none of us noticed the moment that color left our world. We had switched to a black-and-white existence, and we didn’t even recognize it. It took a herald, me, to call attention to that fact. Once it was pointed out, all of the passengers immediately endorsed the truth of my claim.

John, another herald, wasn’t so lucky. His head was chopped off for pointing out the changes that a different kind of light, Jesus, would make in the world:

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (John 1:5-13)

Let the light shine on.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 11:53 pm and is filed under Jesus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.