Let Your Light Shine
Day 251 – 8 September
A Light for Those Coming In
No one after lighting a lamp covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. (Luke 8:16, ESV)
The Light Left Burning
There is an old custom, kept in many countries, of leaving a light burning in the window at night. In the west of Ireland on Christmas Eve, candles still glow in the windows of the houses, a practice rooted in ancient laws of hospitality which held that a stranger knocking on the door must never be turned away; the flame says, plainly, that there is welcome here. Families through the centuries have kept a candle lit for a loved one far away at war or on the road, a small nightly promise that they were expected and that the hearth was waiting. And the habit lives on in its modern, electric form, the porch light left on for the one coming home late, the lamp in the hallway so nobody has to fumble in the dark. One motel chain built a whole slogan on it: we’ll leave the light on for you. Everyone understands the feeling. A light left burning is a light that is waiting for someone. It is lit for the person who is still on their way in.
Luke’s Extra Line
Jesus told the little parable of the lamp more than once, and the Gospel writers each kept a slightly different edge of it. Matthew has the lamp giving light to everyone in the house. Luke, who loved to notice the outsider, keeps a line the others leave unspoken. In his telling the lamp goes up on its stand “so that those who enter may see the light” (Luke 8:16). The Greek behind “those who enter” is οἱ εἰσπορευόμενοι (hoi eisporeuomenoi, the ones coming in), a present participle that pictures people in the very act of stepping through the door. The lamp, on Luke’s telling, is placed high for their sake in particular: for the person crossing the threshold out of the night, whose eyes are still adjusting, who has yet to learn where the table is or where to sit. The light is there before they arrive, waiting, so that the first thing they meet on entering is brightness and welcome. Luke also names two lids of his own, a σκεῦος (skeuos, a vessel or jar) clapped over the flame and a κλίνη (klinē, a bed or couch) it might be shoved beneath, both of which would keep the newcomer stumbling in the dark. The point is the same as Matthew’s, only aimed outward now: a lamp that fails those coming in has failed at the one thing it was lit to do.
The Lamp Under the Bed
Yesterday we looked at the grain-measure, the light buried under the business of getting and spending. Luke’s second lid is subtler and, if anything, more comfortable. A lamp under the bed is a lamp kept in the most private place in the house, the place of rest and ease, where no visitor ever comes. It is the light of a faith kept entirely to oneself, real enough, warm enough, but tucked into the corner of life where it costs nothing and reaches no one. Many of us keep our light there without ever deciding to. We have a private devotion, a personal peace, a comfort we draw on in the small hours, and it stays exactly that, private, personal, ours. Nobody coming in from the dark ever sees it, because it was never set where the door is. This is the hiding that feels most like humility and is in fact a kind of hoarding; the newcomer gropes in the dark of the hallway while a perfectly good lamp glows unseen beneath the bed. Jesus is gentle but unmistakable about it. The lamp was lit for the one coming in, and a light that only ever warms its owner has been put in the wrong place.
For the One Crossing the Threshold
The question the lamp asks, then, is a hospitable one: who is coming in? Every life has a door, and people are forever stepping through it out of one darkness or another: the new colleague on their first bewildered morning, the neighbour who has just moved in and knows no one, the friend walking back into church after years away, the stranger who wandered in with more questions than they can name, the relative coming home worn out and ashamed. These are Luke’s εἰσπορευόμενοι (eisporeuomenoi, the ones coming in), and it is for their sake that your light was set high. They arrive with eyes still adjusting, unsure of their welcome, and the first thing they need is what a lamp on a stand gives, brightness that says you are expected and you are safe. This is why the light of a believer’s life matters so much more than private comfort. It is a light left burning in the window of an ordinary life, and its whole point is the person still out in the dark. When they cross the threshold, what should meet them is warmth, a face that is glad to see them, a steadiness that tells them the house is a good place to be. That is your light doing exactly what it was lit for. And behind it, as behind every window-candle, stands the One who kept the light burning first: the God who leaves the lamp on for every returning child, who counts a welcomed stranger above a rule kept, and who has never yet turned a soul away at His door.
Setting It High This Tuesday
A Tuesday’s task, in that light, is to move the lamp from under the bed to where the door is. That begins with noticing who is coming in. Somewhere in your day there is a person crossing a threshold: the new face at work, the neighbour you have nodded at but never spoken to, the one who slipped into the back row on Sunday, the friend who has been lost a while and is only now finding the road back. Your light is for them. Leave it on. That might mean the first friendly word before they have to ask for one, a seat kept, a name remembered, an unhurried welcome that lets their eyes adjust. None of it is grand, and none of it is preaching; it is simply a lamp doing its plain work of making a dark doorway safe to come through. And as you do it, you will find you are joining a very old custom, older than any window-candle: the God who first left the light on is still doing it, and every welcome you give is His lamp, set high in a window, so that one more person coming in from the night can see.
Declaration
The light I carry was lit for someone who is still on their way in. It was never meant to warm only me, tucked in the private corner where no one comes; it was set high for the person crossing the threshold out of the dark, still finding their footing, unsure of their welcome. So today I will leave it on. I will keep it where the door is, and I will watch for whoever is coming through: the new face, the returning one, the stranger who barely knows why they came. For them I will have a welcome ready before they ask for one, and a patience that lets a person settle. This is no grand thing; it is a lamp doing the plain work it was lit for. And I will do it knowing whose custom I am keeping. Long before any candle stood in any window, the light was left on for me; I came in out of the night and found the room already bright. So let my small light say to the next one through the door what was said to me: you were expected, and you are safe here.
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