Weekly Update 5th November
FIREWORKS
Matthew 5:13-16 (Living Bible)
13 “You are the world’s seasoning, to make it tolerable. If you lose your flavour, what will happen to the world? And you yourselves will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. 14 You are the world’s light—a city on a hill, glowing in the night for all to see. 15-16 Don’t hide your light! Let it shine for all; let your good deeds glow for all to see, so that they will praise your heavenly Father.
We looked at this passage in Faith Explorers recently. As is usual, I came away that evening with more questions than answers! Does anyone else find that on the first (2nd/3rd.reading/discussion things just don’t make sense? Just me? Anyway, I looked up different versions to see if that would help and came across the Living Bible above, far less words used, less opportunity to get confused!!
I have a confession to make about ‘letting your light shine’ – For well over forty years I’ve been singing ‘this little guiding light of mine’ (around campfires / on long car journeys), and it only dawned on me at a Christingle service a couple of years ago that I’d been singing about the light of Jesus, and not Girl Guiding, how did I miss that?
This weekend is the 5th of November, so I knew I wanted to write about fireworks, and Katy Perry’s song ‘Firework’ immediately sprung to mind. Songs are funny things aren’t they, like certain smells, they can immediately transform you to a time and place in your memories. This song takes me to two places, the first is the school hall and one of the children’s school productions (I won’t say which as I’ll simultaneously get told off: for embarrassing one (as if) and picking a favourite – I’m not!), and the second is to church, and a service led by the worship group. That service hit home. Sat in a pew (yes, it was quite a time ago) next to Carol, I sobbed. I’d been singing along to the song on the radio, in the kitchen with the kids, and had never stopped to listen and hear the actual lyrics.
I can’t pop all the lyrics here (I’m meant to keep this to one page!) but do google them. The song starts by asking if you feel useless/overwhelmed/not heard (Do you ever feel like a plastic bag, Drifting through the wind, Wanting to start again…) and then redemption (Do you know that there’s still a chance for you, Cause there’s a spark in you, You just gotta ignite the light, And let it shine…….Cause baby you’re a firework)
Of course, Jesus is the light of the World. He’s the firework, and the guiding light.
But Matthew tells us ‘You are the World’s light’ don’t hide it, do good deeds, let Jesus’ light shine through you, for others to see, and know Jesus.
So, when we accept the light of Jesus, we become the light, and our job is to make sure that we let that light shine.
I’m not sure why that took me so long to work out when as an 8-year-old Brownie I appeared to have known instinctively!
Jenny
