I am sitting by the railing on the second floor in Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, eating my McDonald’s breakfast (typical American that I am). I look down and I see a little girl, maybe four years old, walking in the light of a spotlighted advertisement for the perfume/cosmetic shop nearby. The shop beamed their name and specialty onto the floor with a moving spotlight. The little girl would walk into the light that was moving around on the floor. She was in the light and then out of the light. Her fun-filled task was to stay in the middle of the light as it moved.

Chewing on a bite of egg mcmuffin, I thought, “The little girl is walking in the light.” For us more theologically- and pastorally-minded, that thought had a familiar Johannine ring to it. Johannine simply means things written by the Apostle of Love–John. “If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.” I’ve known that phrase for many years; even translated it from the Greek in Bible college. For some odd reason I’ve always considered the light to be static, stationary. But watching that little girl, it hit me in a startling way–the light moves! Even in the context of 1 John 1, we are immediately introduced to Jesus–the Light–and believe me, he moved! The disciples were invited, “Follow me!” Jesus was (and is) on the move. For the disciples to walk in the light, they had to tag along with Jesus in Galilee, Perea, Samaria and Judea, and even over into Decapolis.

An older Deliriou5 song states, “We can see God that you’re moving…” God moves, and God is light. How many of us want to stand still or lay on the couch or sit in the pew and pretend we’re walking in the light? God is not a street lamp riveted in one spot. God is a comet, a shooting star, on the move. One of the favorite New Testament words for the Christian life is “walk.” It implies movement, energy, travel to a destination. “Those who claim to live in him must walk as Jesus did” (1 John 2:6).

The mother finally called the little girl. It was time for them to move on, so she skipped away from her play with the light. I sipped my coffee wondering how an advertisement for a perfume and make-up shop can be transformed into sacred text blowing out the edges of my thinking. “In the rustling grass I hear him pass, he speaks to me everywhere…”

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