Sermon Illustrations on light and darkness

The very nature of light provides contrast. In juxtaposition, differing levels of light illuminate in extraordinary ways, helping us to see what we’ve been missing. In the late 1400s, the art world ma...

In the great scheme of things, light is actually quite rare. Geo-physicists tell us that 71 percent of the earth’s surface lies under the ocean, which means that most of our planet abides in eternal d...

“They will look toward the earth and see only distress, darkness, and the gloom of affliction, and they will be driven into thick darkness.” (Isa. 8:22) In The Two Towers , the second novel in Tolki...

One of the biggest challenges in the Christian journey is grasping the heart of grace. Oftentimes there is an internal battle between our theology and our lived experience. In this short excerpt, Fred...

Psychologists tell us that one of the most difficult conditions a person can be forced to bear is light deprivation. Darkness, in fact, is often used in military captivity or penal institutions to bre...

Many of us assume that our spiritual heroes do not have to experience the same inner-wrestling that we do. Mother Teresa, beloved across the world is one such figure we might “assume” didn’t have to d...

Years ago, my wife and I traveled to Kentucky where I went to seminary and decided to stop and tour Mammoth Cave. The trip marked my first and only time ever to be in a cavern like this, and I’ll neve...

In A Life Worth Living , C.A. Roberts tells of meeting W.C. Coleman, founder of the Coleman Lantern Company. At eighty-four, Coleman recalled how he went from pauper to millionaire overnight. ...

In the midst of an experiment to become more attuned to darkness, author and pastor Barbara Brown Taylor decided to spend time outside as dark sets in: According to the U.S. Naval Observatory, eve...

One of the most dangerous driving situations is when it is raining at night. Not only are the streets slippery and visibility obscured by water on the windshield, but wet streets can reflect light fro...

Every now and then it shows through the clouds that are moving across its face. One moment it looks like the eye of a hawk in profile. The next it looks like the eye at the top of the pyramid on a dol...

I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh:a star shall come out of jacob. Numbers 24:17 KSV No star is visible except at night, Until the sun goes down, no accurate north. Da...

While we are now surrounded by a never-ending number of pixels with our smartphones, there once was a time where the process of developing photographs took something much more significant than pointin...

In the [Roman] catacombs, we are told, explorers take a thread with them through all the dark passages and tortuous windings, and by this thread they find their way back again to the light. There is s...

Mike Mason recounts how his friend Daniel Adair once said: Whenever I meet someone new, I take that person and fix him or her in my heart. To do this, I literally see that person as a star, and I ...

In The Lost World of Genesis One , John Walton points out that the creation of light and the division of day and night is profoundly puzzling if we understand light in the modern way, as a material o...

All the succession of time, all the changes in nature, all the varieties of light and darkness, the thousand thousands of accidents in the world, and every contingency to every one, preaches our funer...

In Genesis 1–2, God makes a home for his people. From the primeval wilderness and wasteland God begets beauty and form, building the grand house called Earth. God’s creative acts are not simply intend...

Holy Scripture is witness to the light of God that arises in the midst of the deepest darkness to illumine the darkness. Scripture is not witness to the light taking away the darkness or exempting peo...

Is Advent a preparatory fast in preparation for the liturgical commemoration of the historical birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, or is Advent a season unto itself. A sacrament of the end of time begun in t...

In 1998, Nick Cave*, an Australian rock/pop artist, was asked by the Vienna Poetry Academy to give a series of talks on the nature of song-writing. A year later he gave a slightly revised version of t...

God formed us in his image — a glorious thought! — but we all participate in the abandonment of that original identity…Does that mean that your precious little child is a dirty rotten sinner, as some ...

While many world religions worship gods in temples, Israel’s claim was unique. Theirs wasn’t simply a consecrated center for worship; it was a meeting place where the Lord of the creation actually met...

Salt and light are indispensable household commodities. Several commentators quote Pliny’s dictum that nothing is more useful than ‘salt and sunshine’ (sale et sole). The need for light is obvious. Sa...

Our culture is afraid of grief, but not just because it is afraid of death. That is natural and normal, a proper reaction to the Last Enemy. Our culture is afraid because it seems to be afraid of the ...

Astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson taught me why space is dark. Why does our sun not light up space? The answer is fairly simple: light needs something to reflect off of. Sunlight from our sun and oth...

“Get well soon! Jesus loves you! God is bigger than cancer!” My tears started to flow as I read these words. They were from a fifteen-year-old girl with Down syndrome in my congregation. Less than a w...

Jesus also spent time—decades even—building stuff. Jesus was a tradesman. He is called a tekton (Mark 6:3), a builder who used his hands. God came to earth and apparently thought it worth his while to...

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life…. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for pe...

In early 2017, less than a month after Donald Trump was inaugurated as the president of the United States, the Washington Post adopted a new slogan: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” There is of course a ...