Light and High Beauty {written but unpublished in 2021}

I’ve been thinking about Light lately. When I was driving around yesterday, the light was filtering through the clouds, falling down upon us all in these radiant beams, like it was kissing each of us, like it was just pouring forth beauty and life and care and love and goodness and all things beautiful.

This is tangible beauty to behold that we don’t even recognize as the amazing blessing that it is. 

Light is a blessing. Only by it can we see. It makes the world grow and flourish. It makes gorgeous sunsets like we saw on top of Black Elk Peak a couple weeks ago. Light is essential for life. 

And the thing is that we can’t make light. We can’t create it. We can’t fashion it or manufacture the brilliance that is our sun. Isn’t it incredible?! What a gift!

Tolkien wrote a lot about light. He is my favorite author and The Lord of the Rings is my favorite book. In the Silmarillion, the prequel to LOTR, the angels make the first light in the form of two trees very similar to the moon and the sun. This book is meant to be like a myth but what’s so interesting to me is even in this myth, how important and prized light is. When Sauron’s boss, Morgoth and his spider Ungoliant, destroy the trees, the world is plunged into darkness...except for the silmarils that a high elf, Feanor, had made. He had captured the living light of the trees and housed it in these jewels. An entire age of that world was fought to return the silmarils to the elves. They were greedy and lustful for the light much like Satan was greedy and lustful for God’s glory and position. He was jealous of God. He wanted to set Himself up in the place of God. 

“You said to yourself: “I will ascend to the heavens; I will set up my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of the gods’ assembly, in the remotest parts of the North. I will ascend above the highest clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” ‭Isaiah 14:12-14

Satan was jealous of God’s glory, His light, His beauty. And so he fell.

But each of us do the exact same thing as Satan. We lust for our own glory and to set ourselves up as worshipful. Do we all not desire to be approved of and loved and appreciated and applauded and lifted high above the other common people? I know I do. I desire glory. Only God has glory and we want it.

In the Hobbit that I’ve been reading to my kids, we just read about the Arkenstone that Thorin the dwarf desires above all other treasure that Smaug the dragon stole from them. Thorin said it was, “like a globe with a thousand faces; it shone like silver in the firelight, like water in the sun, like snow under the stars, like rain upon the moon!” And it shone, “of its own inner light,” and “took all light that fell upon it and changed it into ten thousand sparks of white radiance shot w glints of the rainbow.” This description is so similar to God’s glory,

“The appearance of the brilliant light all around was like that of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day. This was the appearance of the form of the Lord’s glory. When I saw it, I fell facedown and heard a voice speaking.”

‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭1:28‬ ‭

Light and high beauty belong to God alone. This beautiful world is not a happy accident. It is beautiful bc He is beautiful. 

In the Lord or the Rings light saves the company of the ring many times. Gandalf arrives with the sun, the hope of men, and tramples his enemies down. Theoden, king of the Norse-like allies of Gondor, comes with the morning sun and tramples the enemies surrounding Minas Tirith, the city of kings where Aragorn is crowned. Sam fights off Ungoliant’s ancestor, Shelob, with light. This same light was in the silmarils. Sam fights the real battle of hope and despair when he finds something on which to rest his worries - on high beauty beyond the evil age. “ Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master's, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo's side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.”

Light and high beauty exist beyond this world. We are a speck in darkness but there is glory beyond us, God’s glory. His glory awaits those who are His and trust in Him alone. I am thankful and grateful and amazed. 

As Tim Keller said in his sermon about David’s courage, “ If the Bible is true the whole universe is filled w joy and glory. We’re temporarily stuck in this speck of darkness. It’ll be okay no matter what happens. Bc of Jesus, joy is always on the way. My own heroism doesn’t last. The more we look to His heroism [His light, His deeds], the more heroic we can become.”