How the Light of Jesus Shines Through Ordinary People
While reflecting on the theme of this issue of Inscribed, a childhood memory came to mind. We would sing loudly in church, off-key and unashamed, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…!” Jesus’s words in Matthew 5:16 inspired that simple song, “Let your light shine before others…”. We often jazzed up the tune by adding a line mentioning our hometown in Missouri. Raising our index fingers like candles and circling them above our heads, we’d sing, “Let it shine over Poplar Bluff, I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!” That long-ago memory makes me wonder, how do we let the light of Jesus shine today?
Jesus is the light sent to us.
The Apostle Paul helps us answer this question in 2 Corinthians 4:6–7: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts… But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” This truth is central to Christmas: Jesus is the Light sent into the world (John 8:12), “…to shine on those living in darkness…” (Luke 1:79). For Christians, the light sent to us is also within us. According to Paul, we carry a priceless treasure in our fragile humanity, like storing diamonds in a burlap sack. We are jars of clay, holding the infinite treasure of the gospel in our earthen hearts.
His light must shine in us before it shines through us.
The light of Christ must enter us before it can shine through us. Paul compares this inner illumination to God’s speaking light into creation: “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3). His own conversion began when he was blinded by a light from heaven (Acts 9:3), and only after his heart was enlightened did he become a light to the Gentiles. We cannot reflect what we have not received.
When I was seven years old, God allowed His light to shine into my heart. John Wesley White, an associate of Billy Graham, held a series of evangelistic meetings in our high school gymnasium. One night, as the choir sang and the invitation was given, I turned from my sin and trusted Jesus. I “believed in His name” and became a child of God (John 1:12). I sensed God’s forgiveness and the light of His presence both then and ever since!
Afterward, my older brother whispered sarcastically, “You’re too young to know what you’re doing!” I didn’t say a word to him, but inside I thought, “Yes, I do!” I knew I had been saved; I sensed that I had been forgiven of my sins and adopted as God’s child. And I still know it. That was the night I saw the light. It remains true: the light must shine in us before it shines through us.
Then His light shines through us.
Paul says we carry the treasure of Christ “in jars of clay” (2 Cor. 4:7). In his time, clay jars were simple, inexpensive containers, but not considered especially valuable. They were ordinary utensils, fragile, breakable, and unremarkable, which is the point Paul wants to highlight. We, like jars of clay, are vessels through which God reveals His glory to demonstrate that the power belongs to Him. This has generally been God’s pattern: not to call the extraordinary but to use ordinary “jars of clay” people to shine His light. Along these lines, David Roper writes, “The people God uses have rarely been great people, nor have great people been the people God uses… God looks for misfits and milquetoasts, schmucks, and schlemiels. It’s not that he has to make-do with a bunch of fools. He chooses them.”
If God delights in using ordinary people, then Jesus shines through us most naturally in simple acts of love. For example, speaking a kind word to a discouraged friend, saving a seat at the Christmas table for someone who might otherwise eat alone, or inviting a neighbor to your church’s Christmas services. We don’t need to be spectacular to be useful; we only need to be willing to make small sacrifices so the light of Jesus can shine through us.
As the world grows darker, how can we shine the light of Jesus? By recognizing that we are not the light ourselves, but that we carry the light of Jesus within us. We are jars of clay, chosen and filled so that others might see Christ in us. So may we lift high the candle of Christ this Christmas, not through brilliance, but through humble faith, trusting that God still makes light shine out of darkness.