Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.

- Luke 5:29

Before we came to work at Chatham Community Church, both of us worked as missionaries to college students with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

When people would hear that we worked with college students – especially fraternity and sorority students – they would often comment about the wildness of our campuses. At times, every missionary to a college campus wonders: “How am I going to connect Jesus to Animal House?”

So one of the things we would do in InterVarsity was to throw awesome parties.

Jesus was well-known for attending awesome parties. In today’s passage, immediately after Jesus called Levi to follow him, a party broke out. Levi probably threw parties like this all the time. But this party was different.

This party was different because Jesus was there. His presence doesn’t remove the fun (as we saw a few days ago). Instead, he gives partiers access to a different kind of joy and revelry.

We would throw parties in InterVarsity because so many college students only knew how to party in darkness. The fog of substance abuse and hook ups passed for a good time. And their perception of Christianity was that any move toward Jesus was a move away from fun. They couldn’t be more wrong.

God constantly invites us into the light. Whatever pleasures we’re seeking in our seedy, secret, self-destructive moments of play are fully fulfilled in Christ. God delights to have us play in the light.

Where have you bought into the lie that all of the fun is to be had in the darkness? Where do you need to learn to play in the light?