Years ago a friend of mine spent some time with the founder of the International Justice Mission, which at that time was working to fight human trafficking in Thailand. In Thailand, there were laws on the books about human trafficking, but no one was doing anything to enforce them. So, in essence, what IJM did was put together teams of people to go and confront it by walking in the front door of these places and turning on the lights. As my friend was hearing about these operations he asked him, “Weren’t you scared?!” He replied of course he was scared, but after the first time it got easier. The logical follow-up question was “Why?” My friend was operating under the completely reasonable assumption that the people in these places would resist or get violent in response. The answer he received surprised him. He was told, “When you shine light in the darkness, the ones who have thrived in darkness no longer thrive; they run.” The only thing it took was some boldness on their part for the light to shine in those dark places. Those teams were able to walk into darkness, and they were able to speak to darkness, and when they spoke to darkness, they spoke with the clarity that only light brings.
What Paul wants us to see here in Colossians is that Jesus is the one who brings light into our lives, and it completely changes the game. Jesus has rescued us from the darkness and He has brought us into the light where we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. The reason 2000 years later we celebrate Easter is because, as Paul said, we have been delivered out of the domain of darkness, and we have been transferred to the kingdom of the Son.