Shine the Light of Christ

You were once darkness ... now you are light in the Lord. ... Fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth.

Don't participate in ... darkness.  Expose the works of darkness.  Everything exposed by the light is made visible.  

– Excerpts from Ephesians 5:8-14

What is darkness?  

• The absence of light.

What is light?

• The natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible.  It is an electromagnetic radiation – energy.

What is spiritual darkness?

What is spiritual light?

Ma'at and the Ancient Egyptians

The ancient Egyptians held that the creator established a balanced universe and that imbalance in the world arose, not through the existence of some evil force, but from human behavior.  

Justice was a factor of daily life and was discussed in connection with not only earthly life, but also the afterlife.  The ancient Egyptians held to the concepts of “justice” (which they named ma‛at) and “law” (hpw). 

Ma‛at, is one of the earliest abstract terms in human speech.  On a cosmic level Ma‛at governed the proper functioning of the universe and kept the world’s elements fixed in their proper places. This is attested to by the fact that almost all of the texts and inscriptions discovered speak of justice.

Law was the written rules intended to enforce, or point to ma’at, but the remarkable word ma‛at  summed up for them all that was highest in human life.  It was behavior that promoted balanced, harmonious relationships between people – behaviour that was “right, correct, just, orderly, true.” 

The opposite of ma‛at was jzft, “wrong”, “incorrect, or antisocial behavior”, “disorder”, “falsehood”, and “injustice.”  Today we attempt to control these actions by religious commandments and codes of civil law. The ancient Egyptians did not have such law codes and the distinction between ma’at and jzft was determined by practical experience. Ma‛at governed human affairs and served as a yardstick against which the Egyptians measured most of their important experiences. Man “did ma‛at” because it was good and because the deities desired it. It was the principle of right order by which the cosmos operated and which men recognized as needful on earth and incumbent upon them.  

Ma‛at was realized when justice was effected.  To be just meant to protect the weak from the strong and to accomplish equality.  The word came to mean “right, true, truth, real, genuine, upright, righteous, just, steadfast”, etc. and all these conceptions were represented in Egyptian speech by the single word, ma‛at.

Wrong actions appeared to them to be behavioral aberrations that impeded human beings from being happy because not conforming to ma‛at brought disharmony and unhappiness.