The True Light Series

A young man went from paper to paper trying to get a job as a

cartoonist, but he was rejected and told he had no talent. Finally, a

pastor hired him to draw advertising for the church events. It was a

poor paying job, and he had no place to stay, and so he was allowed

to sleep in the old church manse. One morning as the sun rose he

was awakened by the noise of scurrying mice, and this gave him an

idea. He began to sketch one of those church mice, and that

morning one of the most famous of fictional characters was

born-Mickey Mouse. Walt Disney always looked back on that

morning as the dawn of his career. Amazing and wondrous things

happen in history, and in our physical world when the Sun, the

light of our world, rises.

Everyday is a new adventure in life as we rise from the darkness

of night, and walk into the light where God promises His mercies

are new every morning. What a wondrous thing is light. The poet

said,

Out of the scabbard of the night

By God's hand drawn,

Flashes his shining sword of light,

And lo-the dawn.

Every dawn is a wonder, but never has there been a more

wondrous dawn than that on which the sun arose for the first time

on this planet when it's creator was one of the inhabitants.

Through Him all things were made and now He is a part of His own

creation. The artist has entered his own painting. The author has

become a character in his own drama. It is a wonder beyond all

wonders for on that first Christmas dawn the light of our physical

world was shining down on the light of our spiritual world. It was a

dawn of a new day in a new way, for never before in history had the

sun ever risen on Him who is the origin of all light.

John was so dazzled by the light of Christ that he became the

apostle of light and used the word light in his Gospel more than all

the others put together. In this opening chapter of his Gospel he

gives us some of the most amazing revelation about this light that

came into the world on that first Christmas. The first thing we

want to look at is-

I. THE WONDER OF HIS LIGHT.

John makes some statements here about Jesus that are as

mysterious and beyond comprehension as physical light is to

science. Light is the very essence of science, and everything that is

wondrous about science revolves around light. Science and

theology have this in common for all theology also revolves around

light.

In verse 4 John says, the life of Jesus was the light of men, and

then in verse 9 he says, the true light that gives light to every man

was coming into the world. Later in John, Jesus says, I am the light

of the world. The more you know about the wonders of light, the

more you know about the wonder of God's Christmas light-His only

begotten Son.

Light and Jesus have so much in common. It is as if light is an

expression of His image. For centuries scientists debated the nature

of light just as theologians debated the nature of Christ. Was light

a wave or a particle? It was so hard to decide because light was so

creative it could be either. In 1905 Albert Einstein won the Nobel

Prize for his paper on light. He proved that the whole controversy

over light was nonsense, for light did not have to be one or the

other. It could be, and it was, both. Light, he proved, has a dual

nature. So also, theologians have debated the issue-was Jesus God or

man? Oceans of ink have been used on both sides. But the Bible

makes it clear that this too is nonsense. Jesus, like light, has a dual

nature. He is not God or man, but both God and man. The Word

who was God became flesh and lived among us. Just as scientists

had to face up to the reality that light has a dual nature which is

contradictory, so theologians had to face up to the reality that the

light of the world is both God and man. It may not be easy to

grasp, but light does not have to be logical. It is the absolute of

science and theology, and man has to bow to it's power to be dual in

nature.

The very first thing that God called good was light. He began

the process of creation of all order by saying, "let there be light."

Then He said the light was good. Everything else that He made He