Luke 8:16-25 Light, family, and faith

Luke 8:16-18 Parable of the Lamp. Luke 8:16 parallels Matt 5:15-16. Jesus first makes the point that nothing stays secret forever. Eventually everything will come to light, either in this life or at the final judgment. Watergate should be an adequate modern parable for this truth. But even if someone manages to bury things for their entire life, it will come to light at the final judgment. But Jesus is the Light of the world! (John 8:12) We should put Jesus on a lampstand - in this case, our lives.

         Luke 8:18 is a peculiar verse. How are we to understand this seeming inversion of fairness? In the context of light and revelation, it seems that Jesus is telling us that the one who has received true revelation from God (light) in the sense of the earlier passages about doing what He says - that person is going to receive more, because he has a good heart. But the one who thinks he has a spiritual revelation, but has not received God's truth (John 14:6, 18:37-38) and has rejected Christ, not only will not receive light, but will ultimately discover that the spiritual revelation he thought he had was wrong.

Luke 8:19-21 Jesus' mother & brothers come to Him. In view of the high regard with which Mary, the mother of Jesus, is held, His treatment of her in this passage seems paradoxical. We know that she knew He was the Son of God, because the angel had told her so (Luke 1:35). There is no implication that she now doubted this, yet He said that true kinship is established based on hearing and doing the will of God. Mary had called herself the love-slave of The Lord before Jesus' birth. What more did He expect? Perhaps this was only a symbolic statement to re-emphasize to all present the relational nature of God, that would naturally result in doing what He says.

Luke 8:22-25 Jesus calms the storm at sea. The disciples were naturally afraid when waves began to swamp the boat. Jesus was asleep! Do we ever see things happening in our lives that terrify us, and Jesus seems to not answer prayers? When Jesus says, 'Where is your faith?' He is metaphorically asking us the same question. When that problem arises, and we pray but He seems to be far away or asleep or unresponsive, do we become terrified? And is that natural reaction what God wants in the circumstances? Perhaps we need to adopt the mindset that Paul had during the Euraquilo, when everyone else on the boat thought they were lost but he encouraged them in faith. (Acts 27:14-44). At least he offers us a different model for response to the storms of life.