By Seth Postell

Light expels darkness. Creation is full of powerful metaphors deliberately designed by our Creator. The fact that light is stronger than darkness and is hard to hide is one of them.

Jesus warns us not to hide our light, but to let it shine for all to see. This Hanukkah season we’re calling on all who will hear: Be bold! It’s time to shine! Let people see who the Messiah really is!

“‘While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.’ These things Jesus spoke, and He went away and hid Himself from them. But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him” (John 12:36-37).

John 12 marks a major transition in the Gospel of John, from a public demonstration of signs to the nation of Israel (John 1-12) to a deeply personal ministry to his disciples and to all those who receive him and become the children of God (John 13-21; see 1:11-12).

This passage signifies the moment in Jewish history when Yeshua “hid Himself from them.” It is important to note, however, that this hiddenness is not because of his absence from the pages of the Hebrew Bible or from the fabric of our holidays, traditions, and history as a people. It is a hiddenness of national spiritual blindness. He was always there for those who had eyes to see.

Yet the testimony of every Jewish believer is the same: once we see him looking back at us from the pages of our sacred book, our beloved holidays, and even in the darkest moments of our history, we cannot “unsee him” ever again.

He is literally everywhere and we wonder to ourselves why we hadn’t seen his loving eyes looking back at us before.

He is the Light by which we see the present, and he is also the Light by which we see that future day when our people will also recognize him looking back at them from this mysterious hiddenness, and realize that Yeshua was, is, and forevermore will be “Immanuel,” God with us!

Photo by Robert Thiemann on Unsplash