Daily Manna · Day 121 · May 1
Life and Light
“In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”
Today's verse says of Jesus, "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." Then why does the world He made so often look like a hospital ward at three in the afternoon? And why are the people who believe this not clearly more alive than everyone else?
Imagine two friends talking that question over at a kitchen table.
"John means more than a heartbeat," the second friend says. "He opens his Gospel the way Genesis opens, and the first thing he puts in the Word is life. That life is what gives people light. The two are one gift."
"Then the light is losing," says the first.
The second friend points to the very next verse, where John chooses his words with care: "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." The old word comprehended means to grasp. The darkness could not grasp the light, either to understand it or to put it out. Darkness has never been able to swallow the light.
"That is not much comfort," says the first.
"It was not offered as comfort," the second answers. "It explains why the room looks the way it does."
So this week, open to Him the room in your life you have kept dark: the envelope you have not opened, or the conversation you keep pushing further down the calendar. Light can be hard to look at when it first comes in. Still, it is the only way anyone finds their way across a dark room, and the darkness has never put it out.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 121 is Lack of Knowledge (Hosea 4:6).