During Lent I have been addressing Jesus’ seven “I am” statements in the gospel of John, through each statement Jesus revealed a little more about who he really was, what his purpose was in coming , and how we are supposed to respond to him. In our memory verse this morning Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world.”
As I was reflecting this week about light, I was thinking about our need for light, particularly light from the sun. Our very life, our very existence depends upon light from the sun. If it wasn’t for sunlight our planet wouldn’t be warm enough to sustain life, without light crops would not be able to grow, without light plants couldn’t complete the process of photosynthesis which takes the carbon dioxide we exhale and creates oxygen for us to breathe. Sunlight also directly affects us. I recently read an article on nutrition that we need exposure to UV light to somehow help our bodies produce vitamin D. Scientists have determined that a form of depression occurs when people don’t get enough sunlight, like in the middle of the winter (the official cause of the winter blahs). We need sunlight to survive. What an appropriate way for Jesus to describe himself to others.
1. Jesus is the Light
When Jesus spoke these words, “I am the light of the world,” John’s gospel tells us he was speaking at the conclusion of the Feast of Tabernacles/Shelters/Ingathering (7:2). This feast was a week long harvest celebration commanded by God during Moses’ time to occur in October after all the crops had all been gathered in (Lev. 23:33-43). This feast was to remind the Israelites people how God had delivered them from slavery and provided for them during their 40 years in the desert. During the Feast the Jews built shelters made of branches to live in, therefore its name, Feast of Shelters. By living in these shelters for a week they remembered how God had brought their ancestors out of slavery in Egypt and provided for them for 40 years as they wandered the wilderness living in these primitive shelters. Every year they gave thanks and remembered in a tangible way what God had done in their life. You can imagine, after living in a shelter made of branches for a week, you would probably have a greater appreciation for what you have, and how God has blessed you and your family.
As Jesus spoke these words he was in Jerusalem at the Temple treasury. The treasury was not a building but a place to collect offerings located in the Court of Women just to the east of the Temple [picture]. They would set up thirteen horns which people could place their offering on the way in or out of the Temple. Jewish tradition tells us that during this festival they would light many torches in the Court of Women and these lights could be seen around Jerusalem, lighting up the dark night as it were. These torches served as a symbol of God’s presence (just as we light candles today as a reminder), reminding them how God was present with Moses and their ancestors as a pillar of fire by night as they wandered 40 years in the desert before entering the Promised Land God, which we think of as Israel.
Here was Jesus the day after the Feast had concluded. The sacrifices had been offered during the week, the shelters were being taken apart, the torches representing God’s presence had just been extinguished. And Jesus declared to those around him, “NRS John 8:12 "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life."
I believe Jesus was making a point. Just as the light of the torches represented God’s presence, who was present with them as a pillar of fire in the darkness of night and also guided and protected the people of Israel, Jesus was saying I am that light. I am God’s very presence in the darkness of this world. Occasionally the pillar of fire would move, and it was the signal for the Israelite people to pack up their camp and follow the light. As the Israelites followed the pillar of fire in the darkness of night, we must follow Jesus the light in the darkness of our world, otherwise we will keep stumbling through darkness.
2. Stumbling through the Darkness
The truth is we live in darkness, not literally of course (unless you live on the North Pole during the winter). Darkness in the Bible is an analogy for evil, sin. It is not a coincidence that most crimes are done under the cover of darkness. In the darkness people can go unseen, their acts are hidden, secret. Our world is shrouded in spiritual darkness, and where there is spiritual darkness, evil and sin flourish. People do not obey God’s commands, they act selfishly, they harm others, either physically with their actions, or verbally with their words. Darkness exists in our country, it exists in our community, it exists in our schools, and the Bible say it even exists in us.
Why does darkness exist? You may think because it comes from Satan, and you would be partially correct. You may say because it comes from Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden, and you would be partially correct again. But darkness existed before Satan, and Adam and Eve. Actually darkness is the absence of light. Spiritual darkness, evil, is the absence of God’s presence.
[Illustration of Albert Einstein proving to an antagonistic professor that evil exists as the absence of God,
A University professor at a well known institution of higher learning challenged his students with this question. “Did God create everything that exists?” One student bravely replied, “Yes he did!”
“God created everything?” The professor asked. “Yes sir, he certainly did,” the student replied.
The professor answered, “If God created everything; then God created evil. And, since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are, then we can assume God is evil.”
The student became quiet and did not answer the professor’s hypothetical definition.
The professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.
Another student raised his hand and said, “May I ask you a question, professor?”
“Of course”, replied the professor. The student stood up and asked, “Professor, does cold exist?”
“What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?” The other students snickered at the young man’s question.
The young man replied, “In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460 F) is the total absence of heat; and all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat.”
The student continued, “Professor, does darkness exist?” The professor responded, “Of course it does.”
The student replied, “Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton’s prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn’t this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present.”
Finally the young man asked the professor, “Sir, does evil exist?” Now uncertain, the professor responded, “Of course, as I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily examples of man’s inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.”
To this the student replied, “Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God’s love present in his heart. It’s like the cold that comes when there is no heat, or the darkness that comes when there is no light.”
The professor sat down. The young student’s name, Albert Einstein.
Without God’s presence in our life we are left in the dark. Why do we see great atrocities committed around the world? Why do we see people in our community increasingly sucked in to alcohol, abuse, and moral sin? Why do we hurt people, and make poor choices in our life? Is it because we are evil? No, it is because we lack God’s presence, God’s light fully within us. Our community has not allowed the light of God into it.
Jesus is the light come into our dark world. In order to see our lives changed, our communities changed, our world changed requires the light of Jesus shining in the dark corners of our life and in our communities. Jesus wants us to live in the light. We need to receive the Light if we are going to walk in the light.
3. Receiving the Light
Later in chapter 12:46, Jesus said
“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.”
Letting the light enter every part of our being.
Light reveals the darkness for what it truly is. When the light is shed into the darkness we can see things as they truly are.
Imagine your life is like a house at night with many rooms only the lights are shut off, you are in pitch black darkness. I believe that’s the picture Jesus wants us to have of our life without him. He is the light standing at the front door knocking, asking for entrance. NIV Revelation 3:20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. By inviting Jesus into our life, trusting in him, putting our faith in him, we are figuratively opening the front door and allowing his light to enter into our darkness. This means we are taking a risk though because when we let the light of Jesus in, his light will expose the dark corners where the sin has been hiding out in secret. Light has a way of exposing the dirt and filth in our life. Have you ever been to a bar during the day? It might look okay at night but in the daylight you can see all of the filth. When Jesus exposes them we must recognize them and seek his forgiveness in order to sweep them out of the house. We might call this the salvation experience, we are saved from an eternal condemnation to eternal life with God.
Jesus begins to illumine the foyer and the kitchen, but there are many rooms in the house, not just the foyer and the kitchen. Have we allowed the light into every room in the house, or is there a room, an area of our life we have kept dark, we are afraid to let Jesus enter for fear it will expose something ugly?
I’m here to tell you that unless you let the light of Jesus into every room and allow him to clean up you will continue to struggle with certain dark behaviors in your life.
This means the ugliness of our dark past will be exposed, and we need to hand it over to God, and ask forgiveness.
4. Walking in the Light
Ephesians 5:8 For though your hearts were once full of darkness, now you are full of light from the Lord, and your behavior should show it! 9 For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. 10 Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, rebuke and expose them.
Once we have allowed Jesus to go through and expose all the dark areas of our life, and allow his light to shine. We must walk in the light. Allowing the light of Christ to shine through us. The more areas of our life we allow Christ into, the more light will shine through us. If we still have dark areas of our life it is because we have not allowed the light of Christ to deal with it, we have tried to keep it hidden and secret from him.
How do we walk in the light? John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, summarized it this way in his General Rules
a. “Doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind”
b. “By…doing good of every possible sort, and as possible, to all…”
c. Attending upon the ordinances of God [prayer, reading Scripture, worship, receiving communion]
1 Jo. 1:5b God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
When we walk in the light there are two things which occur.
A. Fellowship with one another
Those who live in the light will have fellowship with other Christian believers. We will live in unity together and we love one another. If we are not living in fellowship with each other we are not walking in the light, we are choosing to live in the darkness.
B. Purified from sin – Live in a State of Forgiveness
Those who walk in the light are continuously purified of sin. This does not imply that we will never sin again. The following verse makes that clear; “If we claim to have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” Rather it implies we are in a state of forgiveness, we are covered and cleansed by the blood of Jesus.
Have you received the light of Jesus into all areas of your life? Are you walking in the light as he is light? Please join me in prayer.
[Prayer guiding those who have not received Jesus into the light, also for those who have not allowed Jesus into all areas of their life, and for those who are having difficulty walking in the light]
