Leonardo's Light

Leonardo was an interesting fellow. Perhaps the most unusual of all of God's creation. He was a genius, thinking in abstractions five-hundred years before their times. He wasn't just an artist. He was an inventor, a military strategist, engineer, municipal planner, and his interest in the working of the human body lead him to covert mortician work.

Personally, he was an enigma. He was said to be a sorcerer, a homosexual, a necrophiliac, and the keeper of Jesus' secret love life. The truth is we know little but what was left in his notebooks, his few surviving paintings (many of which he never finished) and his trail of court cases. But we can clearly see his genius, his forward thinking, and his fascination with creation.

"The color of the object illuminated partakes of the color of that which illuminates it."

-Leonardo da Vinci

In this quote Leo is speaking about a basic principle of light and color. An item's color is effected by everything around it. A white vase next to a red apple will have a pinkish hue from the refracted light. But there is also a much deeper meaning that one can see. Let's look to the book of First John for a similar message.

Walking in the light

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.


Us human beings like to think of ourselves as being rough and tough. Paul Simon sang in that old folk song, "I am a rock... I am an island." But I think that song is mostly Paul's wishful thinking. The reality is we aren't rocks. We aren't hard and unaffected by the world in which we live. In a strange way I think we are like sponges. We are porous and absorb everything around us. If we surround ourselves with the illusions of this world, if we suck up the glitz and glamour, the neon lights and the fast food filth, we become that which we see, that we hear. We are what we eat. But if we focus on the Light of the World, if we soak up the Son... if we bask in the Ever Glow of God's Son Jesus Christ, we take on that which shines down on us.

Lord, shine on me.