Thoughts for the Day

Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word that you have heard....Whoever says, 'I am in the light', while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.

Thoughts

Living in the large rectory at the end of a cul-de-sac leading down to the isolated estuary in Suffolk was interesting! We moved in on January 1st, and I lived on my own all week with our old blind and deaf labrador, Alice, until my husband returned from his work in Gloucester. At night it was pitch-dark outside. Alice coped well, using her nose to work out where she was going. But occasionally she would bark, and I would have to go and find her, in case the 'lamping' teenagers were rampaging along the track by the house. Light and dark became very important to me in a way that living with street lights did not.

The reading above is taken from the first letter (or Epistle) of John. The three letters appear to have been written by the same person, probably in Ephesus around 95 and 110 AD. There is some disagreement about who the writer was - John the Apostle (the beloved disciple) or John the Evangelist, who was probably not the same person.

The writer has some tough words for the new Christian converts, and for us. When we hate someone it's like being in total darkness - in this case the darkness of sin. Just as I would stumble around at night in my huge garden and fall into rabbit holes in the pitch dark in an attempt to see find Alice, so the writer says we can stumble because we are blind to the truth. Everything in life is distorted, even though we may not realise it, and we need the light of Christ in our life.

Lord Jesus,
You are the Light of the world,
You shine a piercing light on all
places of darkness,
where sin and evil predominate.
Help us to seek Your light and love
this day and everyday.
Amen.