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Let the Light In
"there is a crack in everything that lets the light in" (Leonard Cohen)
A couple of weeks ago I had a painting across the street at the Methodist Church, as did the our friend Clint. This is the painting that I did for their annual Lenten Art. The title of it is taken from a Leonard Cohen song: "there is a crack in everything that lets the light in".
For those who don't know, Leonard Cohen is the author of the song "Hallelujah" that a lot of people like. If you really listen to his lyrics, including the song "Hallelujah", they tend to be on the dark side. I think of him as a morose person. He is Jewish. At his concerts he will actually do Hebrew prayers over the audience, as in "may God's face shine upon you", but he is also an ordained Zen priest. I am speaking as if he is still with us. He died recently. He believed Judaism and Zen to be compatible, because Zen doesn't really talk about God at all. Zen being concentrated more on meditative practice. I would argue that Zen, like most of the major oriental traditions, is nihilistic*. Never-the-less, Cohen is an incredible poet, and that is not what I got out of the quote.
What I see in "there is a crack in everything that lets the light in" is hopefulness: there is something in you that opens you, even in the smallest of ways to allow in the light of heaven. And in some ways it's backwards. There is a crack that lets the light in, but there is also the light is in you trying to get out. There is God in you and He is trying to get in in greater measure.
Everyone that has been in the world, separated from the Holy Spirit, and most of us have spent time, even if we grew up in church, most of us have had a time when we just went through the motions, if we went to church at all. But I tell you from my experience there was always something in the back of my head saying, "this is not the way. This is not where you belong. This is not the thing you should be doing." I think about our former pastor Chris who, while dropping a tab of acid, heard the audible voice of God say, "Chris you're my son. Do not do this." And needless to say it shook him up a bit. Most of us don't get the audible voice of God but we still get that nudge that makes us uncomfortable. We are not comfortable with sin. And the more the Holy Spirit gets into us, the less comfortable we become, to the point where we just can't do that sin anymore, or visit those places anymore.
There are places that I used go, but I am just not comfortable there anymore. I used to be comfortable in those places but I'm not I can't. I can't walk into a bar and be comfortable I just can't. There are other places as well. Just to walk in front of an occult bookstore, I feel that atmosphere. I can walk into those places but I can't walk into them and be comfortable. I can walk into them, but I fight against spirit there, which is, I believe, the whole point.
We should be people whose worldliness has fallen away so much that we are liberated to walk into an occult bookstore and have that darkness flee from us. Not that we can walk in. We shouldn't mosey in like were skipping through the tulips, but we should be able to walk into that place and have that place terrified of us, because God is in us. God is in us to the degree that the atmosphere changes where we are. That who we are is changed so much, that the atmosphere around us changes. That is what it means when God says "Take dominion." Let your spirit be such that the atmosphere around you is conform to the Spirit of God in you and not the other way around. You should not have to constantly be looking for a place to feed you.
All of creation should feed off of you because you feed off of God and God is everywhere. God is absolutely everywhere. You can't flee from God. And the more of God you have in you, the more you know that. Christ came, "to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things" (Ephesians 3:9, ESV).
Turn to Psalms 119, that's big long one in the middle of the book. That's the one where each stanza starts with a Hebrew letter. Psalm 119, verse 130: "Your instructions are a doorway through which light shines" (NET). There is a crack in everything. There is in every person out there. Everyone that you meet has a little voice in their head. It doesn't matter who they are or where they are, God is speaking to them. Why you think that all of the religions of the world have certain basic things to them, certain basic understandings of what is right and what's wrong. God is speaking to everybody. They may get it horribly wrong, but they know certain basic things because God is speaking to everybody. There is that crack that lets the voice of God in. As much as you try to smother it, it's going to stay there and when we as people are able to really release God in us, we know how, then, through the Lord, how to get a hold of that little voice in that person how to force that crack open how to liberate and break chains in the darkest places.
I believe that there is a time coming when God's people will be able to walk into occult bookstores and get a hold people drag them out of that darkness. People who have been in darkness for years. We should be able to get a hold of that crack force it open because of the light that is in us. And because of that light that is always there in us, and it's calling to the light of heaven, that light is not just seeping in from the outside it's on the inside calling to heaven, saying, "heaven I want you", as much as God is saying to us, "child I want you".
We see that connection in my favorite book the "Book of Job" talks about the Behemoth, and I've talked in here before about that. The Behemoth is not the same allegory as the Leviathan. The Behemoth is an image of the man connected to God, and there is that image that the navel (or muscles) of his belly is his strength. Behemoth's strength is his connection to heaven at the core of who he is. There is something in the center of us that is connecting us to heaven, a silver cord (Ecclesiastes 12:6). It's an image that Hindus and Buddhists use. There is a connection between us and God whether we like it or not. We can run from God we can just deny that God exists. We can do whatever we want, but there is a connection. That is the crack through which God reaches us and we reach God. That crack breaks open when we really go for it.
So that's what my painting is about. It's about releasing something inside of us that has the ability to override every atmosphere and change, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, ourselves and the world around us.