Who Wants To See The Light?

You Wanna See the Light?

1 John 1:5-7

One of the things you notice working in schools is all the in things.

Something that is definetly in at the moment is skateboarding. And

this helps me to feel like I am back at high school since

skateboarding was in when I started High school. Not that I know

how to ride one. But it does cause me to cast my mind back. Back

more than a decade. Which I guess is beginning to get a little

depressing.

When I was young... ger, everybody, all my friends were into

skateboarding and so I thought I should be, too. So when my

Birthday came round, I think it was my twelfth birthday, I asked for

a skateboard. My mum stood there stunned. She was shocked. All

my life I have been into team sports and so every birthday I would

ask for a football or a basketball or a soccerball. In fact this was the

only time I ever got something other than a ball until I was about

16. But my parents decided to get me one anyway. The problem

was the one they got me was the wrong one. I could use it just the

same as any other skateboard, badly. The problem was that this

was some Kmart brand. It was the wrong one. But I didn’t let that

stop me. So I took it out the back... and straight into the garage.

Grabbed some sandpaper and eventually I had a clean deck. Then

I got some paint and did my best impersonation of an Alva logo

because that was an acceptable brand. Put some new wheels on it

and now it was ready to impress. The only problem was that while I

was working on it my little brother had told some of my friends what

I was doing. I was found out. So I never rode the thing. The

following year I got a basketball. I learnt my lesson.

I tell that story because it illustrates a truth. We act the way we

think others want us to act. We all have facades or masks that we

put up so that we will be accepted. We put up images to others of

the sought of person we want them to believe we are so that we

will be accepted. We wear the right clothes. Talk the right talk. And

walk the right walk. The problem is that it is just not us. It is a

facade. A disguise. And pretty soon we’ll begin to feel like we are

just a sideshow attraction and like we have lost something,

something that was never seen. We’ll want to come into the light

and be ourselves.

Who can tell me what the school motto at Cardiff High School is?

Know Thyself. Two words expressing the simplest message. Know

thyself. But two words expressing one of the hardest of all tasks.

To know thyself is hard because we like to live in the darkness of

the image we present to those around us. We spend so much time

in the darkness of the facade that we have decieved ourselves and

we don’t know who we really are. We know that we can’t stay in the

darkness, we need to be oursleves and come into the light.

So if we want to escape the darkness, to see the light, why can’t

we?

I know a thing or two about light and darkness. Some of you have

heard this story before. I go to college in Sydney. And last year to

make it to my Theology lecture at 8 o’clock on a Tuesday morning,

I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning. And at 4:30am it is pitch

black. Now I don’t know about you but at 4:30 in the morning I’m in

a coma. Before I went to college, I didn’t even know 4:30 came

twice in one day. But every Tuesday morning at 4:30 at the Short’s

house the alarm went off. Now the alarm clock we use is

Catherine’s and it goes like this. Beep! Beep! Beep! That wouldn’t

get me out of a daydream. And so every Tuesday morning, without

fail, Catherine would begin to push and shove and kick me in an

attempt to remind me that I’m the one who has to get up. And

amazingly, my hand flies out and lands on the button to shut it off.

And nine minutes later we do it all again. Because no-one...

no-one gets up after the first buzz, right.

And so at 4:39am, after the second buzz, my left foot says to my

right foot, “It’s your turn to get out first, I got out last time.” And my

right foot says, “na ah”. And I tell them both to shut up, cause I’m