My dear friends, my sisters and my brothers in Christ, what you are, what God thinks of you, what you truly are, is this: You are light.
In a moment, just a few moments after we have baptized our new brothers and sisters in Christ, when we to them “hand on the light” of Easter, I will say to them, I will speak what is newly true of them, “You have been made light in Christ.”[1] Again, that’s it, that’s the gift, the new reality: You are light. Tonight, that’s what I want you to remember most: You are light—that truth. That is what God will soon do with you tonight, you who are about to get wet. You will become light. And, for the rest of us, tonight, seeing them, what God wants us to do is to remember that we are light too, that we too should burn brightly like them. In a dark world.
It is, of course, to become a new creation; it is a new birth. Jesus said we must be born again if we ever want to see and enter the kingdom.[2] That is what we will do tonight. The font, you see, is a maternal thing; it is a kind of womb, children are born there. In the beginning, God said, “Let there be light.”[3] He says it again tonight. These are our metaphors, our images; they signify an immaterial reality. That’s why we call the baptized infantes and “illumined,” these beautiful old ways of speaking. Because you are light, born from light—again, in a dark world.
That is the meaning of the fire, the Paschal Candle, our pillar of fire leading us out of Egypt, our many Egpyts—our wicked sins, our bad politics, our false friends, whatever your Egypt happens to be. Some pharaohs still enslave us. The world is dark, some think it’s getting darker—I think of what Dr. King said once, that it is “midnight within the moral order;” I fear he remains right about that.[4] But you have been “made light in Christ.” Why? Why has providence called you out of darkness? That’s a question you should take to God, asking him what for, asking him what difference it makes that “once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.”[5]
I mean, why? Why you? It is beautiful to recall that we have been saved, that our salvation is pure grace; it is beautiful to be thankful for that and to change your life in gratitude; or to begin to try to change, sincerely to change. Which is my prayer for you, the prayer I pray for myself, that we are grateful enough to give the Lord something in return—changed lives, something beautiful for God. But how?
Think about what it says in Genesis in the creation story. There’s a moral lesson in it; it is, I think, the first moral lesson of Easter. Immediately after God said, “Let there be light,” it says that “God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.”[6] How should this night change you? How can you do something beautiful for God? The first thing you can do is recognize your baptized dignity, recognize that you are hágios—that is, holy, different, set apart. Which means what Paul said: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”[7] God separates light from darkness; you are light. “Walk always as children of light,” I will plead with you in a moment, praying that you may persevere, that you may, at the end of it all, join “all the Saints in the heavenly court.”[8] That’s what it means to be light in a dark world; that’s the beginning of what it means—realizing that now your life is truly different. You have died, your old self has died, and you are now risen in Christ. You are now light in a dark world.
But what does this mean practically? What now is the assignment? What’s the task? This is where, I am afraid, I must leave you. I am not here to give you such detailed instructions; that’s not my job; I am not capable of that. I’m not being wimp here or anything, it’s just that you being a genuine Christian is up to you. Going back to work, going back to school, to your family, your old friends: how to be a genuine Christian is up to you. I can only tell you that you now are different, that now you are light. And so, be light; or, to quote Pink Floyd, at the very least, “don’t help them to bury the light.”[9] St. Augustine said that we should adorn our consciences with “the lights of justice.”[10] I’ve always loved that line. I mean, how beautiful it would be if we were to walk out tonight into that dark world burning more brightly for the sake of justice; how beautiful that would be, how beautiful all the trouble we’d cause, how beautiful if we were to become saints and martyrs and mystics and turn the whole world upside down. How beautiful it would be to be bright like that.
For the world is dark, some think it’s getting darker, but you have been “made light in Christ.” He made you light for a reason; find out what that reason is and live it. For this world needs light, the light that shines in the darkness, which darkness cannot overcome—the light born of water and the Spirit, the light soon alight in you.[11] Amen.
[1] Order of Christian Initiation of Adults
[2] John 3:3
[3] Genesis 1:3
[4] Martin Luther King, Jr., A Knock at Midnight, 71
[5] Ephesians 5:8
[6] Genesis 1:4
[7] Romans 1:7; 12:1
[8] Order of Christian Initiation of Adults
[9] Pink Floyd, “Hey You” (1979)
[10] Augustine, Sermon 223I
[11] John 1:5
© 2025 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield
