The Light Still Shines
Finding Light in a Dark World (John 1:1–5)
I revisit the first verses of John more times than I can remember. It’s one of those passages I never grow tired of reading. I think because it speaks so directly to the foundation of everything.
Last Christmas, I found myself making ornaments with this verse written on them—in Greek. I can still picture myself carefully adhering the tea-dyed paper to the plastic, truly present in the moment, unlike usual. As I assembled it, I was forced to slow down and actually look at each word instead of simply reading them.
When I hung the ornament on the tree, it stood out from the rest. They were more than decorations. They were more than words that sounded nice. These words have been read and studied and clung to by generations of people.
John starts us in the very beginning. “In the beginning was the Word.” Before your life had a highlight you can pinpoint. Before your story had chapters. Before the universe had form, there was already presence. There was already purpose. The Word was there.
Our lives often start with me. My decisions. My schedules. My anxieties. My identity.
It’s easy to operate like our lives begin when we wake up every morning. But John reverses course. He brings us back. Long before we started trying to make sense of things, long before we were walking around with questions about who we are and where we’re going…Jesus was there.
He was with God, and He was God. There has always been a relationship. Jesus is not outside the heart of God sitting on a throne looking down. He is the unfolding of that very heart. When we look at Jesus we are not trying to extrapolate what we think God may be like. When we see Him, we see God clearly.
“All things were made through him.” ALL THINGS. That means both the categories we try to put life into. The incredible and obvious things. The small and mundane ones. The things that scream purpose and the moments that numb us into thinking we’re just along for the ride. Everything you see and everything you don’t can be traced back to Him. That means your life is intentional, even when it doesn’t make sense. What you do has meaning, even when it feels small.
This also means you aren’t required to hold anything together.
I think we walk around with this weight on our shoulders every day. Like if we don’t figure life out enough, if we don’t understand it enough, if we don’t plan enough…everything we’ve worked for will fall apart. John reminds us that reality and life itself have never been and will never be contingent upon us keeping it together. The same Word who spoke everything into existence is speaking now to continually sustain it. Life does not stay together by your strength, but you are held together by the grace of God, even when you feel fragile.
Then John takes a slight turn. “In him was life, and that life was the light of mankind.” Here, when John refers to life, he doesn’t just mean alive. He means alive to what’s real. See, light is knowledge, clarity. Jesus offers us the kind of life that really sees who you are and what matters most. John says this kind of light is found in Jesus. It’s a light we cannot produce ourselves.
Think about how often we can walk through life without clarity. How we let ourselves second guess decisions. Listen to the lies that we aren’t seeing life or situations clearly. How we try to make sense of something that won’t quite focus. Walking in darkness is moving through life without light. Without clarity. You still function, you still get things done, but something is missing because you cannot truly see.
Jesus is that light.
He helps us see things clearly. He reveals what we’ve hidden and cuts through the nonsense. Your confusion does not get to dictate reality. The noise in your head does not get the final say.
God’s light isn’t just comforting; it is confronting. His light shines on the lies we’ve believed about ourselves and others. The ideologies we’ve trusted that will never hold us up. The patterns we’ve quietly fallen into without even noticing. When we allow it to, His light shines into the darkest places of our lives and names them for what they really are.
And finally, John delivers a verse that seems tailor-made for the seasons we can’t quite understand, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
You can observe that darkness all around you if you look. You see it when you read the headlines that somehow feel heavier each time you check your phone. You see it in the war and unrest plaguing countries all over the world. In communities divided against one another. In the load that people are carrying but nobody else can see. There will be times in your life that it feels like absolutely everything is uncertain. Like the ground has shifted beneath your feet and familiar light seems hard to find.
And yet the light still shines. Not just in warm moments or when life makes sense, but in the darkness. The light shines in tension, in grief, in questions that have no easy answers. Jesus’ light is not overpowered by conflict or noise. It’s not weakened by the chaos around us or the disappointment we feel when people fall short.
The darkness has not overcome it.
There is something powerful about meditating on that when everything around you feels like it’s falling apart. Friends betray your trust. Doctors give you a diagnosis. People you love hurt each other. Businesses close. Jobs are lost. Friends become distant. There will be seasons of uncertainty that test your grip on clarity. Darkness creeps in because life hurts.
And still, when you open your eyes, Christ’s light shines in that darkness. Hope is still there even when it feels like it’s been sucked dry. Love persists even when it’s hard to see it in action. The truth of who God is hasn’t changed, even when our world says otherwise.
These verses have rattled around in my mind during some seasons when I needed something solid to cling to. When it feels like the world is trying to grind me down. When my mind feels frayed at the edges, this verse is a reminder that the light of God is shining in the darkness. It has not been overcome. It has not yielded an inch. It has not gone dim even when society tells us that darkness has won.
The light shines in your darkness too. Even when you’re convinced that the darkness has won, know that God declares otherwise.
When you sit with that for a while, it changes how you view your story. You remember that your story didn’t start with your confusion. It didn’t start with your sin. It didn’t start with the questions you’re still working through. Your story begins just as John begins, with the Word who already existed.
The God who created all things sees you. The God who holds the universe together holds your story together, even when you don’t always recognize it.