Confession

I am not a good man. I try to be good and to act good, but in my heart, in my flesh, I see the fallenness of my own self and my need for God. When I say this, sometimes it sounds like just a line... no, no, no, it's not me, it's God. And sometimes, God forgive me, it is. But it is rarely long before I have to step back, look inside, and be amazed that God could love one like me.

It is in this context that I approached the "you are the salt of the earth/the light of the world" package. It struck me that you are to let your light shine before men that they may "see your good works and praise your Father who is in heaven." It strikes me that, especially when one is discussing an oil lamp you put fire - light, heat - into the lamp much as God has put his image in us as humans and more specifically into those known as Christians. He has put his Spirit, often associated in Biblical imagery with oil, into Christians, for on our own we cannot keep that flame alive. We are a vessel - the combustion chamber where the Spirit of God gives life to the image of God in a way that all the world is to be able to see. We are the lamp - and God does not invigorate (lit. put life into) us that we may while it away privately, but he does it so that this light may be a guide and a beacon to the world.

Perhaps we in modern times forget about the connection between fire and light. Light for us is in a switch, a flourescent bulb, used or unused at leisure. Fire is alive, constant but always changing - predictable but not so. Fire spreads, heats, and lights. Fire sometimes feels magical, transfixing. The electric light may pump out much more light than an oil lamp, but it does so in the cold calculation of science, seperating the fire from the light by putting the fire in a power plant and connecting it to the light with electrical cabling.

Forgive the incoherrence - 5:40 is way early for me. But I had to share insight when it hit me. Mostly, because otherwise I'd forget much sooner.

-Edit 6:10am-

I almost forgot. "In the same way let your light shine before people, that they may see your good deeds and give honor to your Father who is in heaven." The light that is shining, the good deeds that we do - the greatest freedom is found in the fact that these deeds are not dredged up form our own inherent goodness. The light is not inherent to us - it is the fire and the oil that have been placed in us that cause them. We are the vessel, but the reason that people see our light but give honor to our Father is that the light in us comes from our Father in heaven. When they see that light, they see Him, not us.