THE DYING OF THE LIGHT

C.S. Lewis wrote a short story called “The Man Born Blind,” which was published in 1977, by that title. It was an early draft of a version later called simply “Light,” and both versions were studied by Charlie W. Starr in his book “Light, C.S. Lewis’s First and Final Short Story.” 

In the story, the man born blind continually hears references to something called “light,” but is left wondering and confused about what it is. He has an operation that restores his eyesight and quizzes his sister Mary about “light.” He finds some consolation by closing his eyes and pretending that he is blind once again. One day he wanders alone to the quarry where his sister had previously taken him. There he encounters a stranger, a photographer who is commenting on the light. The man asks the photographer about the light and when a patch of it is pointed out, he goes close to the edge of the quarry, intent on finding the light. He falls into the abyss and that is the end of the story. It is an intriguing because “light” becomes a metaphor for enlightenment and discovery. However, the man’s searching for literal light leads to his death.

Lewis may have never finished the story and probably had no intention of publishing it. However, Walter Hooper, the once inveterate and entrenched biographer of Lewis, included it in one of his edited collections of Lewis called The Dark Tower and other stories.

James Tunstead Burtchaell published a book in 1998 called “The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches.” He narrates “how each school's religious identity eventually became first uncomfortable and then expendable, and he analyzes the processes that eroded the bonds between school and church.”

The “dying of the light” also occurs with individual Christians. That once bright and shining light begins to flicker and die. The oil of the Holy Spirit is gone and the light goes out.

John relates how Jesus told the Pharisees that he was the “light of the world” (John 8.12) because he brings understanding and illumination through salvation. Darkness, consisting of dark and evil deeds has attempted to extinguish the light, but has not been able.

In Matthew 4.16 Jesus said that “The people who live in darkness will see a great light. On those who live in the dark land of death the light will shine.” Jesus is that light and he will shine on the death of those who believe on him.

Jesus heals the blind in several stories. In Matthew 9.27, he heals two blind men, who had followed him into the house where he was staying. He touched their eyes and they could see. In Matthew 12.22, Jesus heals a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute and in Matthew 15.30 many blind people were brought to him and “he healed them all.”

He has passed on his light to us, proclaiming that “You [we] are the light for the whole world” and that our light cannot, or should not, be hidden. Therefore, we “Believe in the light, then, while you have it, so that you will be the people of the light.”  (John 12.36)

After Jesus died his light continued to shine through his followers and when we die our light will continue to shine through those our lives have influenced.

J.B. Phillips, a great Bible translator and writer for the “common man” wrote a small book called Ring of truth: A translator’s testimony (Hodder and Stoughton 1967). In his chapter “Recognizing truth” he asks, “What God-given faculty is it that enables us to recognize the Word of God as the Word of God and not as a mere human opinion or doctrine?” 

His answer is “the inner truth,” the illumination of truth by the Spirit of God. We are able, by that Light, to “see the light” and it changes all that was dead into the living recognition of God himself.

So, is it “lights out” for us, or is there a Light, which is also a powerful, bright and shining metaphor of the power of Jesus, which should not flicker and die.

Karl Franklin