Soon after embracing Christ as my Lord and Savior, I went spelunking. That’s “cave exploring” for the unfamiliar. I don’t mean to imply that the two experiences were linked (spelunking and becoming a Christian), but they are marvelously tied together in my mind. The link between the two for me is the power of the biblical metaphor of “light.”
If you’ve ever crawled around in a muddy, guano-filled cave, you’ll know how very dark complete darkness is. The stormiest night, the murkiest closet, the gloomiest space is nothing like the absolute blackness of being deep underground and all the sources of light extinguished. I well remember being with a small group, deep in the cave, and the leader instructing us to turn off all our flashlights. After a few seconds, the darkness was complete, and I mean complete. It was impossible to see anything, even the vaguest impression of your hand before your face was gone. A real darkness, complete blackness, an entire absence of light, total emptiness.
At that moment, the leader said to us, “Jesus is the light of life. Without Jesus, this is the darkness of the world.” Oh my. Gut punch. This is what it means that the world is lost in darkness, that without Jesus there is no light at all, a complete absence of even the vaguest insight into anything at all. This is what it means for our non-Christian neighbors, our friends and family to move through life—without light; not with little light, but a total darkness. While they may not recognize it, the darkness is complete, and whatever they think they see, is actual blackness.
Next the leader said, “Jesus is the light of life,” and with that, he lit a single, small candle. The light from that tiny flame suddenly filled the cave. Of course, there were still shadows, darker spots in the cave, crevices in the rock which were murkier than others, but the total victory of the light over darkness had never been so clearly evident to me. Wherever the light went, the blackness simply vanished. The darkness simply could not win, it can not win! The victory of light is complete and total. Where the light goes, darkness flees, and nothing the darkness can do will ever compete with the light.
Paul writes to remind the Philippians that they live, “in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation,” but that they also, “shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15).
My spelunking experience helps me see a few things:
- This generation is crooked and twisted, because they are in total darkness, without Christ.
- The idea that this darkness is invincible, that it is beyond any cure is simply the devil’s lie.
- The light of Christ is the light I carry, and I carry it everywhere I go.
- Also, that same light will always be victorious, though pockets of darkness remain, The Light has come into the world.
- The responsibility to carry that victorious light is an immense privilege, and I want to be faithful in it.
This Sunday in worship we will look at Philippians 2:12-18, we will see again The Light and what it means to carry it into the darkness.
- In verse 12 and 13, Paul links obedience with what? What is the connection he sees between obedience and salvation? Notice he begins by reminding them of their obedience, and then moves on to talk about salvation.
- Notice the parallel tracks Paul articulates—“work out your own salvation” (human effort) and “for it is God who works” (divine effort). How do you suppose the two work together in Paul’s mind?
- God works “to will and to work for His good pleasure” (verse 13). What does THAT mean?
- What is fundamentally wrong with “grumbling and disputing?” Obviously, those are not godly, admirable qualities, but why not?
- There is a lot, a lot of information in verse 14-16 (one long sentence). Break it into individual phrases and contemplate what each means. How does each speak to you as an individual?
By Henry Knapp