The Light And Life (Christmas Day 2022)

THE LIGHT AND LIFE

Text: John 1:1- 5

John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) He was in the beginning with God. (3) All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being (4) in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. (5) The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

Luke’s Gospel tells us about Elizabeth’s miraculous pregnancy and the birth of John the Baptizer. The Gospel of Luke also tells about Mary’s miraculous pregnancy as a virgin through the supernatural means of the Holy Spirit as she carried in her womb God’s only begotten Son.

Matthew‘s Gospel tells us about the shepherds, the wise men and Herod’s opposition.

Both of these Gospels illustrate the significance of the birth of God’s only begotten Son. John’s Gospel illustrates how Jesus brings life and light to a dark world.

I once heard of the criticism of an art professor who gave his opinion to one of his students. His student had painted a beautiful picture of a home against a beautiful, picturesque backdrop. His professor had a small critique of something that his art student overlooked. What was it you ask? There was no light in the window. So the correction was made. The art student adjusted the painting to have light in the window.

Why is that story relevant to today’s scripture? Our world is a lot like that house. It is there, but it is missing the light that would give it meaning. There are some who are happy to have their house in the shadows. Others, are not happy when the light removes their dark hiding places. There are three things we can glean from today’s text, symbolism, creation, redemption.

SYMBOLISM

In John’s Gospel, the darkness of symbolic of evil and the light is symbolic of both light and life. In order to understand the significance of the light, lets go back to the beginning.

CREATION

Genesis 1:1-4 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (2) The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (3) And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (4) And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness (ESV).

God gave the earth its form and separated the light from the darkness. God uses light to dispel the darkness to give sight, clarity and meaning.

REDEMPTION

Redemption is about good versus evil, light versus the dark, those lost in the darkness and those who are children of light .

Satan uses the darkness to separate God’s people from the light of the Gospel in order to deceive (2 Corinthians 4:4), mislead, kill, steal and destroy (John 10:10) because He is the father of lies---a lying thief (John 8:44).

Jesus came from heaven “full of grace and truth” as one of us to face the same trials, temptations and death to conquer those things tto give to us the gift of abundant life in the here and now and eternal life in the hereafter.

Fully God and fully human: It has been said that “The two most common errors people make about Jesus are to minimize his humanity or to minimize his divinity. Jesus is both God and man” (Life Application Study Bible Notes).

Light and life: In Jesus is both light and life.

Robert Fulguhm who wrote Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, once attended a conference where the peace advocate Alexander Papaderos was speaking. Papaderos asked if there were any questions to which Fulguhm asked “What’s the meaning of life?” Fulguhm remembers people laughing, gathering their belongings while getting ready to leave. Papaderos took the question seriously.

He fished a small round mirror from his wallet and began to tell of its significance. As a small child, in a poor remote village during WWII he found pieces of a broken mirror. He couldn’t find all the pieces to put it together again, so he kept the largest piece.

As a boy, he played with the mirror and became fascinated how he could use it to put light in dark places as a game. As he became an adult, he kept the mirror with the understanding that he was neither the light, nor its source, but a reflector of light in dark places. (Quoted and paraphrased from ..... Kenda Creasy Dean. Almost Christian. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 83 – 84).

That is why Jesus came, to give light and life and He asks us to be His acolytes as “children of light”.