Daily Manna · Day 121 · May 1
Life and Light
“In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”
Say the objection plainly first. In him was life. Then why does the world he made look so much like a ward at three in the afternoon, and why are the people who believe this sentence not visibly more alive than anyone else?
That is roughly how the conversation went, over a table, on a Tuesday.
"Life was in him," the other one said. "Not a pulse. John is writing an opening to match Genesis, and before he puts anything else in the Word he puts life there. And the life was the light of men. The life is what lights people up. Those are not two subjects, they are one."
"Then the light is losing."
"John says the opposite in the very next line, and he says it carefully: And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. Not extinguished it. Did not take it in. Darkness has no equipment for receiving light. It can only fail to."
"That is not much comfort."
"It was not offered as comfort. It was offered as an explanation of why the room looks the way it does."
So take the room you have kept unlit and open it to him this week. The envelope you have not opened. The conversation you keep moving down the calendar. Light is not gentle and it is not neutral, but it is the only way anybody ever finds the floor.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 121 is Lack of Knowledge (Hosea 4:6).