Light-filled Eyes

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" (Matthew 6:22-24)

Does that mean that if we don't fill our eyes with light, fill ourselves with the light filled truth of Christ,with  eyes fixed on Light Himself that we will then be filled with something else that is actually darkness masquerading as light? The kind of darkness that is all encompassing, enshrouding the soul and permeating the heart to the extent that we don't even know light is something that is good - the very thing that is missing from all the dark?

When I get home in the evening my room is usually very dark when I walk in, sometimes if I haven't cleaned the floor up before I left for the day I even end up tripping over something - so I usually rush for my lamp before my eyes adjust to the dark. Naturally I would want light to illuminate the dark - to help me see so I can walk around, discern different items in my room, find my pajamas maybe even tidy up. But then at night when I get ready to go to sleep, I shut off this same lamp and after about 5 minutes my eyes adjust to the darkness. At this point I can see different shapes with some clarity so to some extent I can 'see' but the darkness still truly obscures my view. I can't see anything specific - or as it truly is. While I may be able to make out the shape of a book I can't possibly see the title, or tell what color an item of clothing is. However at night this obviously doesn't concern me and I even get comfortable in the dark, then my eyes get heacy and sleep woos me into a deeper darkness, eyes closed, the world tuned out. 

Now if someone comes barging into my comfy sleepy-eyed state and darkened room and flips on a light I would either hide my eyes under the covers or tell them to ' turn it off', my eyes stinging from the piercing brightness. The same light  earlier had wanted on as soon as possible upon entrance to my room was the very light I found disruptive and even painful once my eyes had grown accustomed to the dark.

So I think in many ways this illustration points to a spiritual reality evident in this passage. When I see darkness in my own heart, or echoing around this fallen world around me, I run for the lamp, the Light who is Christ knowing I need to be filled with light from Him so that the darkness doesn't overcome me. So I hold to His Word, and obey His Spirit and as I keep my eyes fixed on Him they are healthy - I see clearly. I can see the darkness but I call it what it is - sin. And I can see my spiritual poverty and my need for Him. But there is an Enemy to this Light that loves darkness. The world beckons, idols are made by my own hands, and I am allured. I start to think something else is light. I start to think I like life better when the light is off. In fact I start to wonder why I ever needed a Light on to see anyways. My eyes strain in the dark, they falter and flicker, but I grow accustomed to this blurry state. Maybe I am just focusing too much on my comfort, or the approval of peers, or the mark on my term paper. Maybe it's not that I'm looking to anything inherently bad, but that I look away from the Source of all good. I look away from Christ. I look to myself and when I see even the slightest chance I could do it on my own, the lie gets me won and I forget none of it's me. I forget it's all grace anyways and I think maybe this is where I should focus. Maybe this is the better vantage point. Maybe this is actually Light. My eyes grow even more strangely dim. So I pursue more comfort, more approval, better grades. But this time it's emptier, less gratifying. I'm like an addict - the craving increases with ever decreasing pleasure attained. My light has become darkness as I have filled myself with this darkness-masking-as light and have lost sight, and desire for the True Light. Reading His Word has been subtly replaced with mind-numbing episodes of some show, any show on TV and worshiping him has been replaced with over-emotional self-indulgent music. Truly authentic relationships have been replaced with superficiality. I find myself tripping over sins without even realizing it, and confusing trivial things with the eternal, because how can one see anything for what it really is, with their view all obscured without the Light?

"How great the darkness is!"

This is the state of the soul when it has adjusted to the dark, when the bright white of Christ's light no longer illuminates bearing naked all truth, but rather stings the eyes and discourages the soul. This is the soul-sick blindness of adjusting to the dark. When others try urge your gaze back to God's Word, His Truth, to the Lamp Himself,  you quickly turn it off or hide under the covers. The darkness is comfy now, and the spiritual sleep - the eternal blind state of the soul edges in. But it doesn't have to end there, because Christ is a redeemer. And He is the Light that pursues us.

"In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:4-5)

The eye being the lamp of the body means that we really are accountable for what we are letting our eyes look upon. And what we spend our time fixating on does matter because it is either sharpening our ability to see the beauty and the glory of the Gospel of Christ or it is making our sight and our spirits dull and blind to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus as Lord. This means that how I spend my time - all the time - matters. I don't believe there is a neutral, which means we are always moving towards magnifying Christ, or away from Him. I know I need to keep checking my heart that Jesus truly is the source of my life, and that I'm not buying into any shiny counterfeits that don't hold a candle to the Light of the world. 


Also it's super intriguing to me that this passage comes right in the middle of a passage where Jesus talks about storing up treasures in heaven rather than treasures on earth. (Matt 6:19-24) It would seem to indicate  that where your treasures are - your eyes follow. So if your treasure is Christ then of course your eyes will be illuminated by His light and will embody health. You will pursue His Word and be filled by it But if your treasure is rooted in selfish ambition, then of course you will be filled with the darkness this world treasures as light. Really darkness is space void of light, so if our treasure is not the Light of the world, Christ himself, then you are actually pursuing emptiness.


Lord, illuminate our hearts and our minds. Give us eyes wide open that stay permanently fixed on You, that they would make our entire beings full of light, Your Light. Help us to see.