I wear corrective lenses. I did not choose to be visionally impaired. No one blames me for being near sighted. They may make fun of my lack of sight or my glasses or, you know, whatever people tend to make fun of, but they don’t blame me. That would be ridiculous. It’s not like I asked a doctor to altar my vision so that I could see worse. And that would be more than ridiculous. The truth is, I want to see as clearly as possible in spite of my genetic deficiency. But what if it was my fault? What if I hired a doctor to perform destructive surgery? All so that I could walk through life wondering who is who and what time it is and getting into all manner of accidents. Would people be sympathetic to my numerous head injuries? Would it invoke compassion if I cried out mightily, “I can’t see!”?
Luke 11:33-36 seems familiar. Maybe that’s because Jesus said something similar in 8:16. And yet no one questions that Jesus is telling the same parable for a slightly different emphasis here. No theories of why Luke is using different words than himself here. So, once again, Jesus can and does say the same or similar things in different contexts to emphasize different things. We all do. This parable starts pretty much the same as the one in chapter 8. The only difference really is the addition of another place where no one puts a lit lamp. You don’t put it under a basket that is used for measuring grain. That would be silly. But you also don’t put it in a crypt or cellar. The word is used only here in the Bible. It could refer to any hidden place; any nook or cranny really. A lit lamp is placed on a lampstand so that everyone who enters the house can see. In chapter 8 the parable is about hearing and obeying the message. Here, it is similar. Jesus is the sign; he is the light. What are you going to do with him? Not tuck him away somewhere in a cellar. Surely not.
Then Jesus talks about the eye being the lamp of the body. The Greeks believed that sight worked because a person had a light within themselves that received and accepted the light from outside of the body. The Jewish people had similar ideas. If that light inside of you is healthy or clear, it effects your whole body – just like the gift of sight effects everything; you are full of light. But if it is diseased, well, then you are full of darkness. There is some truth here. I remember seeing an interview with Charles Manson years ago. The eyes told a story of madness and darkness.
Interestingly, Jesus puts the blame squarely on the individual. If you are full of darkness and your eyes are diseased, that is on you. Keep watch over, notice carefully, beware – all definitions for the first word in verse 35. Make sure that the light in you is not darkness. You have some control here. Darkness on the inside is not an accident of birth. It is a perception problem that can damage one’s vision. Why didn’t people understand that Jesus was the message; that he was the lit lamp that could illuminate the whole house? They had allowed darkness to creep into them and that darkness became the lamp that is their eyes. Now their eyes cannot see the light. Their vision is impaired and it is, on some level, their fault.
The goal is for the whole body to be full of light and therefore, to be fully illumined; all lit up inside with the light that is Jesus. So, you see the light that is Jesus and the light that is in you takes Jesus in and the brightness increases so that others around can see the brilliant display. But if you have darkness in you, you will see the light that is Jesus as something other than light and you will reject him and then your diseased eyes will become even gloomier. You will see as if you have cataracts – when the natural eye lens becomes cloudy and keeps the light from reaching the eye. My mom has cataracts and can no longer see colors. There are no glasses that will fix this or the fuzziness she sees. The only thing to be done is to remove the effected natural lenses and replace them.
There is hope here. If you see Jesus and he appears fuzzy or dark, it is because you have spiritual cataracts. You have allowed darkness to descend inside of you and your eyesight has become wacky. The good news is that you can remove your lenses and replace them with Jesus lenses and Jesus lenses let all the light come in. And when that happens, your whole body is illumined – lit up. And anyone entering here will be able to see because of the light shining into you and from you. Your choice. You can continue to embrace the darkness and complain about your vision, or you can embrace the light of Jesus and shine inside out. Be illumined. Replace your worn-out lenses with Jesus-lenses and see more clearly. Peace.