Join me in your imagination, to walk along Oxford’s Parks Road to the imposing, red-brick expanse of Keble College. We are going there to see Holman Hunt’s moving 1853 painting of Lux Mundi – the Light of the World. We are directed to a small chapel.
There we gaze in silence at this much-loved painting of the Christ figure, standing in the darkness at a door, with a small, dimly lit lantern in his left hand. The crown of thorns on his head is visible, against the light of his halo. His right arm raised, he knocks at the door.
The Christ figure is not looking at the door, but at us and at every viewer. For me, the expression on his face is of an infinite longing. For Hunt and countless others, the lantern at his side is not the light of the world.
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The painting is based on two New Testament passages. In the King James translation of the Bible, they are firstly the words of Revelation 3:20, with Jesus saying “Behold, I stand at the door and knock…”, adding that if anyone opens the door, Jesus will enter, be with those inside, and eat with them. The other passage is in John’s Gospel, chapter 8, verse 12.
John has Jesus saying to people in the Temple in Jerusalem, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life, that he is the light of the world.” The World and the Light From Hunt’s painting and its symbolism, my mind turns to the two key words, “light” and “world”, lux and mundi. There is great depth of meaning here. I start with the word “world”.
In Gospel times, I daresay it would have meant the Mediterranean lands. Some might also have been dimly aware of the lands further eastward, as Alexander the Great’s Greek army had reached as far as the threshold of India. Either way, it was a small notion of the world.
What could that key word mean for us today? Since there are no outsiders to divine goodness, it must surely mean the entire reality of our world; not just all its people, but everything else, including the plant life discernible behind the Christ figure in Hunt’s painting, symbolising the green environment that we are now degrading. Next, I reflect on the word “light”, as used in the expression that Christ is the light of the world.
Light lets us see things, of course, but it also means whatever lights up our eyes, alerting us to something very special. And it refers to whatever lights up our minds, bringing truth and enlightenment to us. So, I ask myself, in what way is Christ the light of the whole world as we know it today? It cannot be his message of salvation, because about two thirds of the world’s people do not believe it, or may not even be aware of it.
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