WHATLEY COLUMN: Light and darkness

Published 3:16 pm Friday, April 9, 2021

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Mary Ella and I took our grandsons to the lake this week during their Spring holidays and on the way, we ate our very late Easter Sunday lunch. I ordered a bacon, chicken, and cheese sandwich without any bread.

When I got it, the bacon was missing and I pointed it out. The young man who took my order and brought it to me said it didn’t ordinarily come with bacon.

Now, my daddy told me to learn something new every day, and that day I learned that a bacon, chicken and cheese sandwich doesn’t ordinarily come with bacon. He did say he would bring me some bacon. I ate the chicken and cheese and later ate the bacon he brought me … although it would have been nice to have eaten them together.

We live in a world filled with both light and darkness and that was a moment of darkness. We meet those people every day… and sometimes we are one!

The BBC reported on an Egyptian bus driver who had an ingenious plan to beat a mandatory drug test … he used his wife’s urine. Nevertheless, he failed the test. He found out when his boss handed him the results and reportedly said, “Congratulations; you’re pregnant.”

Jesus’ disciple John, in the first chapter of his gospel, says, “[6] God sent his messenger, a man named John, [7] who came to tell people about the light, so that all should hear the message and believe. [8] He himself was not the light; he came to tell about the light. [9] This was the real light-the light that comes into the world and shines on all people.”

Now John is a man of contrasts; his gospel is filled with them.

Light and dark. Life and death. Heaven and hell. Spirit and flesh. John also wrote the book of Revelation and in the little story of Laodicea, he quotes Jesus in Revelation 3, “[15] I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! [16] So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

John, the man of contrasts, liked it and remembered Jesus saying it. You either are, or you are not; there is no in between. So we are called to choose sides … light or darkness, life or death, heaven or hell, spirit or flesh!