Opinion: Jesus’ light will never fail

My friend has a beautiful painting of a Cape Cod lighthouse in her office at school. It was on a school trip to Boston several years ago that I first saw a genuine lighthouse. While driving out toward the tip of Cape Cod, my other teacher friends and I stopped explore a lighthouse that was open to visitors. Standing on the sandy hillside surrounded by wooden fencing, the lighthouse silently spoke volumes as I reflected on its withered exterior. The lighthouse was positioned on a small hill overlook the Atlantic Ocean. Old and whitened with age, I thought of the history it would tell if we could only communicate.

At the base of the lighthouse was a plaque that designated it as an historical site. For more than 100 years, the lighthouse had led countless fishing vessels to safety in the remote area where it stood.

My mind wandered, as I thought of sailors and fisherman lost at sea. I thought about storms and high tides. I thought of the perils they must have effaced as they endured terrible conditions in rough waters. I thought about the emotional agony that they must have gone through as they thought about the possibility of not seeing their families again. I thought about the heart-searching moments that they must have experienced as they realized that trip could be their last.

Then I thought about the lighthouse as a beam, throwing its light hundreds of yards over the sea and into the darkness. What a sign that must have been to those sailors and fisherman must have felt when they peered through the foggy darkness to see that light beaming and pointing the way! What a relief they must have experienced as they came closer and closer to its light!

Faith is like that. This Christian life is much like a boat on the sea. Years ago when boats were in trouble, their captain followed the light of the lighthouse. Their being saved from storms was nothing the sailors had done. No rituals were required. They did not have to chant, or beat their chests. They did they have to perform a ceremony to allow them to get to shore safely.

All they had to do was follow the light by steering in the direction of the lighthouse on the shore. They just had to believe and put their trust in the light from the lighthouse stood on the shore that would be a place of safely.

Isaiah foretold centuries ago that the world would be given Christ. He wrote “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath that light shined.” (Isaiah 9:2)

It was as if all humanity was in the sea of darkness with no light no light or direction to guide toward safety to the Father. Then Jesus came. It is simple faith when we believe that Jesus is the spiritual lighthouse.

Further, a relationship with Christ, leads us into the spiritual light of God’s love, assurance and peace. Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:14: “Why he said, Awake you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.”

Finally, in 1 John 1:7 we see the results of walking in the light of Jesus: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleans us from all sin.”

That old lighthouse I saw in Cape Cod is useless now. It stands as a relic to the past and a testimony to the advancement of technology in the present.

Yet that is not the case with Christ. The Scriptures tell us that He is the Light of the world and He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is a light that never grows dim with time. What promised guarantee that we all can trust!

Judy Brandon writes about faith for the Clovis News Journal. Contact her at:

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