“You are to make a lampstand out of pure, hammered gold. It is to be made of one piece; it’s base and shaft, its ornamental cups, and its buds and petals. . .Their buds and branches are to be of one piece. All of it is to be a single hammered piece of pure gold. . .The lampstand with all these utensils is to be made from seventy-five pounds of pure gold. Be careful to make them according to the pattern you have been shown on the mountain.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Light is necessary for life. Okay, I know that’s not strictly true. There are certain plants and animals that have evolved and adapted to thrive in the dark. But for human life, light is a must. We were made to live in the light both literally and metaphorically. Speaking of the metaphorical sense of light, it has been possessed of a rich spiritual meaning in nearly every human religion. The religion God was directing the Israelites to build around their worship of Him was no exception. Let’s talk about the lampstand God told the people to build.

First and foremost, this thing would have been beautiful. It would have truly been a work of art; a creation of the finest craftsmanship. Look through that selection of verses I included from this passage again. Even just typing them in again this morning I was struck by emphasis that the whole thing was to be composed of one piece. This thing would have taken a master goldsmith to produce according to the design God gave Moses. This is once again a reminder that the tabernacle was not simply to be functional, it was to be beautiful. It was to remind people of the majesty and splendor of God. God did this on purpose. He was very clear: design this just like I showed you on the mountain.

Speaking of its functionality, the lampstand was the only known source of light in the inner sanctuary which would have felt a little like a cave without it. With the lampstand, though, and the light it produced reflecting off all of the gleaming gold, it would have made the room seem glorious. The priests doing their work in the holy place would have been not merely able to see, but they would have been nearly mesmerized by the beauty of the space because of the light of the lampstand.

Again, though, the lampstand wasn’t only for functional purposes. It was also deeply symbolic. I don’t think we have time to recount all of the ways it was potentially symbolic for the people, but here’s at least one. It was a reminder to the people that God was to be their light. He was the means by which they were to see and understand what is true and right and good. They could make their way through the world without Him, but it would have been much more difficult than it otherwise needed to be.

This symbolism of God as light would carry right on through the history of the people of Israel to the days of Jesus. Jesus Himself grabbed hold of it and proclaimed Himself to be the light of the world. “I am the light of the world,” Jesus said. “Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.” Jesus proclaimed this in the context of the feast of booths, one of the three festivals God told the people to celebrate back in chapter 23. It was a time when the people were remembering their ancestors’ time in the wilderness including when God Himself dwelt among them in a tent. They would have read and reread the tabernacle descriptions as they worshiped Him. For Jesus to make such a declaration during this festival would have been extraordinarily provocative.

But like God was trying to help the people understand by way of the lampstand, Jesus is the way by which we see and understand the world properly. As C.S. Lewis once observed, we can know the truthfulness of Christianity like we can know the sun has risen, not only because we can see it, because we can see everything else by it. Jesus helps us see the world as it really is. Through Him we can see the good and ugly. We can see God’s plans for the whole thing. We can see our role in it. We can make sense of the broken parts. And even when we can’t, we have the assurance of His presence through the storms. Jesus is the light of the world.

When we try to do life apart from Jesus, spiritual darkness is all we are going to experience. The thing about walking in spiritual darkness, though, is that we can convince ourselves far too easily that we can see just fine. A person blind from birth, though, doesn’t have any real concept as to what light is. It takes someone who can enable sight before we can really see. Well, Jesus gave sight to the blind. He can enable those who are spiritually blind to see.

The lampstand imagery from the tabernacle makes another appearance in John’s Revelation. Toward the beginning of the book, John includes letters from Jesus to seven different churches. In the first letter to the church in Ephesus, a church John himself pastored for a time, Jesus threatens to remove their lampstand because of their willful blindness to the path of Christ they started walking in the beginning. The point is that if they choose to walk in darkness instead of walking in light, Jesus will let them do it and they will suffer the attendant consequences.

Today, God is still our light as He was for the people of Israel. He is still the way by which we can see what is right and true about the world. This light comes most directly through His word which points us to truth in every instance when rightly understood. Sometimes getting to the place of a right understanding takes a little more work than others, but when we commit to living by it, it will not ever lead us astray. As the psalmist observed, God’s word is a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. His light is shining and will shine through us when we are willing to walk in Him. Then, like Jesus said, we can be light in the world – bearers of His light. That’s a very good thing to be indeed.

And, as always, here’s an artist’s rendering of what the lampstand might have looked like. Enjoy.