Lately, I can feel how worn down people are and it’s not subtle anymore. The exhaustion is everywhere. We are tired from the headlines, tired from the shouting, tired from the cruelty that keeps getting excused, tired from being told to move on while the wounds are still open. There is a real temptation right now to shrink back, to go quiet, to protect ourselves by caring less. And yet, right in the middle of this moment, Jesus’ words refuse to loosen their grip: “You are the light of the world.” Not advice. Not poetry. A claim. A responsibility we don’t get to postpone until things calm down.
Jesus doesn’t describe light as loud or dramatic. He calls it a lamp in a house, ordinary, steady, necessary. Light that lets people see clearly enough to move without hurting one another. What feels urgent now is that Jesus knows we will want to hide it. And who can blame us? Speaking truth costs something these days. Compassion gets mocked. Decency feels political. But light was never meant to be hidden for safety’s sake. It exists because darkness is real, and because people get lost without it.
“Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works” (Matthew 5:16, NRSV). I don’t hear that as a demand to be perfect or heroic. I hear it as a refusal to let us disengage. It’s a call to keep choosing humanity when the culture rewards indifference. To listen when it would be easier to scroll past. To stand with the vulnerable when silence would be more comfortable. To act with integrity when cynicism feels justified. Light doesn’t solve everything, but without it, the dark gets bolder.
So maybe faith right now isn’t about being louder or brighter. Maybe it’s about being steadfast. Keeping the light on when fear tells us to shut it off. Keeping the light on in our conversations, in our votes, in our relationships, in how we treat people who are different from us. Keeping the light on so weariness doesn’t harden us into something smaller than love. The world is not short on darkness. What it desperately needs, right now, are people who refuse to turn off the light.
Prayer
God of steady light, when the world feels heavy and my strength runs thin, keep me from pulling away. Make my presence faithful, my words honest, and my actions a light that refuses to go out.
Help me leave the light on—
for justice, for love, for hope.
Amen.