What is to Give Light Must Endure Burning
About 20 centuries ago something quite astounding happened on a mountain top half way around the world from here. Three men had gone there with their leader at his request, and as they stood around the appearance of this man they thought they knew so well changed dramatically. He, like they, wore the dust of the road like a second garment. It permeated the rough peasant clothing he normally wore. It coated his feet and shoes. It rested in all the exposed cracks and crevices of his face and neck and arms and hands and legs. It clung to the oil that lay on his skin and lubricated his hair. It was not that he was slovenly or unkempt in his appearance. This layer of grime was simply the inevitable result of moving about in that dry and dusty land.
And yet, as they looked at him his appearance began to change. Those dusty clothes grew whiter and whiter, with a whiteness that was beyond human achieving. And as they watched in astonishment something else changed. Out there in the middle of nowhere they were no longer alone, the four of them. Two other men appeared to be standing and conversing with their leader, two men they seem to have rather readily identified as the great prophets of their people, Elijah and Moses. Needless to say, they were made anxious by all this, and one of them dealt with his anxiety by talking, one might almost say babbling, about how fortunate it was that the three of them were there with him at this auspicious moment. This man was too terrified to just wait and watch and wonder. He wanted something to do! He wanted work to keep his hands busy, and more importantly, to keep his mind occupied so he wouldn’t have to stand there helpless and afraid.
But the Maker of heaven and earth wasn’t about to let them be freed of their awful wonder by mere busyness even if that busyness had the practical purpose of providing shelter. He responded to the anxious man’s proposal by intervening in the form of an overshadowing cloud and a voice which gave them a pretty specific explanation for what they were seeing, and clear instruction about how they were to respond: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” And then, suddenly, everything was as it had been before. The two revered prophets and the overshadowing cloud disappeared as suddenly as they had manifested themselves, and the disembodied voice fell silent.
One of the first things I can remember learning about color is that black is what you get if all the colors in the spectrum are absorbed, and that white is what you get when all the colors of the spectrum are reflected. But the whiteness the gospel writer describes seems to me to be so much more than the mere absence of color. In my mind’s eye, this dazzling whiteness is glowing and translucent. It’s a luminously bright whiteness. It’s hard to come up with words that more adequately explain how I imagine it to have been because I think that indescribable quality of whiteness which Mark and the other gospel writers use to recount this event is key to understanding what God was trying to communicate there that day.
We sometimes speak so blithely about Jesus being the light of the world. If we’re not careful, it can become just another of a long list of descriptive titles, and one of the more inviting ones at that. But what does it mean to be light? What does it require? What does it cost?
For a number of years I subscribed to a magazine I found very interesting. It was called “The Sun”, and it was printed by a non-profit publishing company in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I found it a truly remarkable publication. One of the many things which caught my eye and my imagination in the first issue of “The Sun” we received was a quote which appeared in the masthead under the name of the magazine on the inside cover. The quote was from Viktor Frankl and this is what it said: What is to give light must endure burning. Listen again: What is to give light must endure burning.
How easily you and I forget the truth of that statement in our modern, electrically lighted environments. When we burn candles on the table or wood in a fireplace it’s for atmosphere, not light to see by. If we want to see clearly we flip a switch which is far removed from the source of power which causes that light to glow. We become aware of the heat which accompanies light only when we’re forced to change a bulb which has blown because the filament inside it could no longer withstand the burning which produces the light.
What is to give light must endure burning. Maybe incandescent is the word which best describes the whiteness of that scene where Jesus was momentarily transfigured before his followers so long ago. Maybe the white-hot light Jesus is to you and me and the world in which we dwell comes from his burning love for God, his God and ours. Maybe what that luminous love requires is a never-ending fidelity to the Maker of heaven and earth. Maybe what that light cost was the cross where he proved once and for all that the crimson of his spilled blood could not overwhelm the incandescent brightness of the love and fidelity he holds for God.
You and I who live in the light of that love are called to be lights ourselves. And I don’t mean that we’re just to reflect that light. We’re meant to be it in our own right. And if you and I are to be light to the world in the way Jesus was, we too must be prepared to pay the cost. The exact nature of that cost may not be the same for each of us. And it may not remain the same for any one of us from moment to moment. But we’re called to embrace that costliness, never forgetting that what is to give light must endure burning. The gift of God to all who persevere in this calling is that unmistakable and incandescent joy which comes inevitably to those who live within the light of Jesus.