Let Your Eyes be Filled with Light
Adapted from a sermon by Fr Daniel Fanous
Matthew 6:19-33
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” – Matthew 6:21. This is a vital reminder to lay treasures in heaven and not possession on earth.
Jesus goes on to say, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
This is strange comparison made by our Lord. He first talks about treasures in Heaven and then diverts to the lamp of the body being the eye. They don’t seem to be related, but if you look closely, the relation becomes clear. Whatever your heart treasures, your eye will naturally be drawn to.
Why does He refer to the eye as the lamp of the body? The word lamp in Greek means source or window. The eye is the window of the body, it is the entry point for light to enter the body. But what is the light that comes to us?
St Cyril of Alexandria says, “Before the coming of our Saviour, the Father of darkness, Satan, made the world dark and blackened all things with an intellectual bloom. In this state of affairs, the Father gave us the Son, Jesus to be a lamp to the world to illuminate with divine light and to rescue us from satanic darkness.”
Furthermore, the gospel of John says, “And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:5). Christ is the source of light. Light is an energy and we know energy must always extend from an energy source. By extension, Christ is the lamp and our eyes will never see light unless they see Christ. Where your treasure is, your heart will be also for your eyes are ever upon the desires of your heart.
For the eyes to see and recognise Christ, they must be functional. If the eye is good then the entire body will be full of light. The actual translation for the word, ‘good’ is ‘seen.’ If the eye is seen then the entire body will be full of light. When the eye is fixated on the seen, life will have a single purpose with no confusion for seeing truth.
If the eye is bad then the whole body will be filled with darkness. The Greek translation for the word, ‘bad’ is, ‘disease.’ If the eye is disease then nothing you do will allow light to travel through. We must be conscientious in protecting our eyes from any sources of harm. Another requirement for eyes to function is the presence of light. Eyes cannot function without light, they can’t retain health unless there is a source of light. In babies for example, if they are starved of light, their eyes will not be able to develop into functioning eyes that bring images to the body. Receiving of light is what ensures eyes can grow and function appropriately.
When the eyes are starved of light, they adapt to the darkness. They begin to hallucinate and see things that aren’t there. First, they see moving patterns and then turn they see full blown images. For our eyes to be functional, they need the light of Christ. This is why Christ says, “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
St John Chrysostom says, “If we destroy our eyes which ought to give light to the rest of our bodies, by what means are we going to see clearly? For when the pilot is drowned, when the candle is put out, when the general is taken prisoner what sort of hope will remain for those that are under his command?”
But more than this – if our eyes are diseased and deprived of life, we are not only in darkness but we begin to hallucinate. Our sense of right and wrong becomes distorted and we do not know how to act. We become angry irrationally, we judge inaccurately, we imagine people have said things against us, we create false scenarios and negative perceptions of other people and then act upon these.
Amid all this turmoil, what we see most clearly is who we actually are. A painter will see the world in colour, a builder will see the world in measurements and a musician perceives the world in sounds. We see as we are. Somebody that is full of anger and hate can only see other angry and hateful people. Somebody that is insecure feels threatened by everyone around them.
If you have murky vision, everything looks dirty; nothing looks clean. But if you have clear vision everything looks beautiful. Father Bishoy of Alexandria was an example of someone so filled with light that he could only see good in other people. When someone would come to him and say that they spent all night thinking sinful thoughts, Father Bishoy would see this person’s capacity for contemplation. When someone confessed that they had spent all night parting, he saw the person’s capacity to pray all night. This is why Christ could only see good in the sinners that came to Him in repentance. Mary Magdalene came to Him as a prostitute, He saw the thief on the Cross but both gained the Kingdom.
May we open our eyes, purify our vision and see Christ as He is where His light not only purifies my eyes but will help them grow so that I can see everyone like Christ sees them. Let us understand the symptoms of disease. If I can only see evil, mistakes, darkness and malice in people around me then I know there is a problem with my eyes, and not those who I see. When I have conversations with my friends, what do I say about other people? Let us purify our eyes so that our interactions remain pure also. May we learn to see how Christ sees. May Christ be our eternal source of light.