Sight unseen

 “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4.6

From David King

I’ve started noticing recently that people seem to install dim lights everywhere. Whenever I try to read a book the light is never bright enough. Also, books seem to be printed in a smaller typeset. Katy tells me that it might be a sign that I need reading glasses. Of course she must be wrong as I am still a young man – if only people used sensible fonts and proper lights…

Okay, so perhaps I’m raging against the dying of the light – literally… It is an interesting feature of the New Testament how often the only people who see Jesus clearly are the blind. I’ve mentioned this before in a post, but it is good to come back to it as we work through Acts 9 in our sermon series, as Saul finds that, in blindness, he can suddenly see clearly for the first time. He describes that moment and applies it to every Christian in 2 Corinthians 4.6. It turns out that, whatever our conversion story, the reality is that it was a dramatic Damascene conversion for every one of us. Whether we were a drug addict or a committed nurse, a murderer or a teacher, a bad sinner or a good one, we were all living in hopeless blindness until the Lord shone the light of his truth into our hearts.

So what is it that Saul saw?

It was that his goodness wasn’t good enough, but that God’s grace was so amazing that it rescued him. As the words of one song put it: “I was worse than I ever feared I could be, but somehow, I was loved more than I ever dared to believe, because of you.”

Those words are true of me, they are true of you. That is the beauty of the gospel.

The rest of the lyrics of the song are:

I was always one of the righteous
Never lived outside of the lines
Kept a close watch on the white wash
Disguising the dead bones inside
Disguising the dead bones inside

I was always one of the good ones
Keeping tabs on everyone else
Sure that I was
One of the chosen
But I was a child all of hell
I was a child all of hell

But you buried me in the bright light
You held my eyes to the sun till I could see that,
I was worse than I ever feared I could be
But somehow, I was loved more than I ever dared to believe
Because of you

I was always one of the blameless
Or at least that’s what I believed
I never thought I could have been blinded
Until I could no longer see
‘Til I could no longer see

But you buried me in the bright light…

Blinded by Thrice