Jesus Is The Better Light (John 8:12-13; Lev. 23:33-44; Exodus 13:17-22) Series

If you're following along with me in your own Bibles, in the gospel of John, you'll notice that this week we come to the story of the adulterous woman. This story may or may not be an authentic tradition about Jesus-- my guess, which is probably worth nothing, is that it is. It "feels" like Jesus' words.

But it's basically a sure thing that it's not originally part of the gospel of John. It interrupts the narrative plot; it uses language that sounds more like Luke than John ("scribes," for one thing); it isn't present in any of the early manuscripts we have of the gospel. So I'm just going to ignore it today.

So where we want to pick up the gospel of John today, at first, is in John 8:12-20. I want to start by reading John 7:2; 8:12, and then 8:20. These verses provide a frame for the passage:

(7:2) Now, it was near-- the Festival of the Judeans-- the one of Tabernacles/Booths/Tents.

(8:12) Then, again to them he spoke-- Jesus--, saying,

"I am the light of the world.

The one following me will absolutely not walk in the darkness,

but will have the light of life."

(8:20) These words he spoke by the treasury,

teaching in the temple,

and no one seized/arrested him,

because not yet it had come-- his hour.

AJ is writing to people who were "Judeans" by birth. They understood the different festivals, in a way that we do not. And proof of that comes in John 8:20. AJ assumes that when you hear Jesus taught "by the treasury," that you will sit up in your pew, and immediately understand the significance of this.

But you don't, right? We read this, and it does nothing for us. We understand that these are not wasted words on AJ's part. It matters, that Jesus taught here, specifically. But we don't get it.

What is it that we have to know? What is AJ telling us, without really (explicitly) saying?

[For what follows, I'm hugely indebted to Charles Talbert, Reading John, pg. 152-53. Every scholar talks about this, but he does it better than everyone else. I'm basically paraphrasing him.].

Every night, as part of the feast of the Tabernacles, there was a candlestick ceremony. There were four huge golden candlesticks, that reached above the heights of the temple walls, crowned with four golden lamps. Each of these lights had a ladder, and a son of one of the priests was responsible for adding oil to keep his own light burning. The wicks of the lamps were worn-out undergarments of the priests.

"According to the Mishnah (m. Sukkah 5:3), there was not a courtyard in Jerusalem that did not reflect the light. At a festival that looked backward to the time of the wandering in the wilderness, the light ceremony could not have avoided associations with the pillar of fire (Exod. 13:21; 14:24; 40:38) that went before the people" (Talbert, Reading John, 153).

So picture Jesus teaching in the temple, in the evening, against this backdrop. [The treasury was right next to the Court of Women.] And let's reread John 8:12:

(12) Then, again to them he spoke-- Jesus--, saying,

"I am the light of the world.

The one following me will absolutely not walk in the darkness,

but will have the light of life."

Jesus begins this section by revealing the truth about himself to the Judeans. He says, "I am the light of the world." Jesus is a light that never goes out. He's not a one-night wonder. And his light, is a light for the world, and not just Jerusalem.

What I'd like, at this point, is for Jesus to say more about this. I want to know what this means, concretely, practically. But this is what we read next, instead. Verse 13:

(13) Then, they said to him-- the Pharisees--

"You about yourself are testifying.

Your witness isn't true."

The Pharisees respond by simply rejecting Jesus' words. They have reached the point where if Jesus says anything, they immediately disagree with him. If Jesus was on Twitter, and tweeted that he is the light of the world, you'd see a little disclaimer below his words saying, "This claim is disputed." Everything Jesus says is disputed, at this point. They have rejected Jesus. They've rejected the light that Jesus offers.

And when they reject Jesus' words, they derail the conversation that follows. The rest of this section-- John 8:12-20-- is going to be a dispute about whether Jesus' witness is true/valid or not. We don't hear anything else about Jesus as light. Instead, we only hear the words of people who "walk in the darkness." [John 8:12-20 is basically a picture of how hopeless/blind/darkened people are, when they don't follow Jesus, and walk in the darkness.]