The Light That Judges Our Lamps

I wrote this devotional to open a meeting of the Board of Deacons at First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor on February 11, 2026. Drawing on Psalm 119:105–112, Proverbs 6:23, and John 8:12–30, I explore the relationship between the “lamps” of Torah and wisdom and the light of Christ. My argument is that these are not three ways of saying the same thing: while the Psalmist and Proverbs speak of God’s law as a lamp that shows the faithful where to step, Jesus’ declaration “I am the light of the world” reframes every light, exposing the difference between our best efforts to find God and God’s free decision to find us. The grace of the passage, I suggest, is that Christ does not extinguish the lamps we carry but reveals their source so that Scripture, wisdom, and moral discipline are not set aside but are, in point of fact, really burning.

Readings: Psalm 119:105–112 • Proverbs 6:6–23 • John 8:12–30

Today’s lectionary readings all talk about light, and it would be easy to treat them as three ways of saying the same thing. But they aren’t, and the difference matters.

The Psalmist writes, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 119:105). This is someone already walking who just needs to see the next step. God’s law shows the faithful where to put their feet. The Psalmist calls God’s decrees “my heritage forever” and “the joy of my heart” (119:111)—this is a person who has received something good and knows it. The reading from Proverbs makes a similar point: parents teach their children, and “the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light” (Prov. 6:23). The surrounding verses are blunt—they mock the lazy, warn against troublemakers, list what God hates. Wisdom lights the way by telling us plainly which roads lead to ruin.

So far, so good. We have lamps. They work.

Then Jesus speaks in John’s Gospel, and the whole picture shifts. “I am the light of the world,” he says. “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Jesus is not offering to show us where to put our feet. He is saying something much bigger: without me, you are in the dark—not because you don’t have a lamp, but because what you thought was light wasn’t the real thing. The light of Christ doesn’t add to what we already have. It exposes how dim our lights actually were. It is crucial to note that the lamp of Torah and the lamp of wisdom are not thrown out—Jesus does not come to destroy the law—Christians read them in light of the One who stands in the temple and says “I Am.”

Jesus’ conversation partners push back reasonably enough: “You are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid” (8:13). They want a second witness, as the law requires. But Jesus points to the Father—whom they can’t see and can’t call to the stand. “You know neither me nor my Father,” he says. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also” (8:19). They’re trying to evaluate the light using a candle. The tools they have aren’t wrong, exactly, but they aren’t enough for what is standing in front of them.

This is the uncomfortable part. These readings aren’t addressed to people sitting in total darkness. They’re addressed to people who already have lamps—people with Scripture, tradition, moral seriousness, good theology. And it is exactly to us, too, that Jesus says: “You are from below, I am from above” (8:23). The gap between our lamps and his light is not a matter of degree. It is a difference in kind: the distance between our best efforts to find God and God’s free decision to find us.

But here is the grace in it. John tells us that “as he was saying these things, many believed in him” (8:30). The light does what light does. It shines. It makes its own way in. The Word that puts our words in their place also gives us new words to speak. The lamp isn’t snuffed out. For the first time, it is really burning—but now from a source outside itself.

We do not set aside the Psalm or the Proverb. We pray them. We take them in. We take them in as people who have been found by a light we did not strike. The commandment is a lamp, and we are right to love it. The teaching is a light, and we are right to walk by it. But the lamp is not its own light. Every light we carry, every good word of Scripture, every hard-won piece of wisdom, every discipline that has kept us on the path, finds its source and its meaning in the One who does not hand us a lamp but who says, simply and without qualification, I Am the light. To believe him is not to throw away our lamps. It is to discover, at last, why they were burning.