On November 29th, Tim Reardon reflected on two passages: John 1:1-14, the prophet John sent as a witness to testify to the life and light of Christ, the Word who was with and was God; and Luke 11:34-36, the eye as the lamp of the body that is full of light.

In many ways, Advent is a prayer. We come to this time amid our own trials, amid a world of uncertainty and hurt — real pressures and hardships — but we also come with an expectation and a hope. We come bearing one another’s burdens and we come in anticipation of a coming Savior. It is a season long prayer — a meditation that is both lament and hope — existing in tension. But it is a moving into hope. It is a prayer for wholeness and healing. It is a prayer that teaches us that our reality is not simply defined by our trials, but by the sure hope and faithfulness of our God — the God who saves, who comes in Jesus Christ, God with us, Immanuel. This is the coming dawn of the light of Christ — into which we emerge from blindness into sight that sees all things anew.

“By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Luke 1:78-79.

Tim moves on to talk more about sight. In Luke 11, Jesus describes the eye as the lamp of the body. Tim talks about what this means in terms of how our eyes actually see, how they were thought to see at the time of John’s gospel, and the relation to light that we receive from outside of ourselves. Hear more via video or audio linked below.

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