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December 12, 2004
Jesus, the Light of the World
Jesus, the Light of the World
Isaiah 9: 2-7 / John 8: 12
December 12th, 2004
The Christmas story we know and love is set in a time of darkness. Isaiah had written prophetically, “The people walking in darkness saw a great light.” The Jewish people had been living in dark times for six hundred years. They were now under subjection to Rome. They seethed with a spirit of revolt. Those were dark times.
Then, from what Luke tells us it seems night was approaching when Mary and Joseph arrive in Bethlehem looking for a place for Jesus to be born. How distressed they must have felt to be forced to make do with a cattle stall, particularly with Mary about to give birth.
That night shepherds were in the fields keeping watch over their flocks. Matthew’s Gospel includes in the Christmas story the dark, brooding fear of King Herod who tried to kill little Jesus. He plunged many Jewish homes into grief as he killed all baby boys two years old and under who lived near Bethlehem.
We are to see that Jesus came into a time of darkness. Perhaps this was important for later generations to see because so many dark times would follow. Skip over the long years that are sometimes called “the dark ages,” after the barbarian hordes had done a number on the Roman empire. Think of our day. Wars and rumors of wars. Our televisions show us images of starving children in the Sudan, AIDS orphans throughout sub-Sahara Africa. It would be possible to paint a very dark picture with gloomy colors from many places even in our own land. There are people in this very city, maybe in this congregation this morning, who might say, “it is the worst of times.”
But God has shined light into all this darkness. The Bible passes before us images reminding us of this. In the first act of creation God said, “Let there be light.” This was before the sun was created on the fourth day. I wonder was this light a ray of hope that there was promise in the chaos, the abyss of nothingness before God separated the water from earth, and brought into being plants and animals and then people—made in His image and likeness?
On Christmas Eve night light penetrated the darkness. Angels appear to the shepherds with radiant light. “The glory of the Lord shone round about them,” Luke writes. Matthew tells us Wise men from the East star a bright star standing over the place where Jesus lay. I know that this bright star didn’t appear on the night Jesus was born, but it was part of a whole project of giving light that God spread over Jesus’ infancy.
In the course of His three years of ministry Jesus shed light into many dark lives. A widow-mother whose only son had just died was plunged into grief. He was not only her son, he was her social security system. With him gone, as a widow she was destitute. Jesus told her, “Don’t cry.” He went to the bier on which he lay and said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And the widow’s dead son sat up and began to speak. People said, “God has visited his people.”
Jesus is well known for the forgiveness He spread wherever he went. You remember the story of the woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. In those days adultery brought the death penalty. She was dragged into a clump of her accusers before Jesus. Her accusers wanted to accuse Jesus too so they could kill him as they intended to punish this woman. If He rejected the Law of Moses he was a blasphemer. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dust. He stood up and said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.” Her accusers melted away. But the light Jesus shined into this dark moment in her life was not just sparing her life. He freed her of the feeling of obligation to keep on sinning. Such confidence in her that Jesus should say, “Go and sin no more.” Jesus gave her hope for a better life, and hope is a powerful force.
So when Jesus said, “I am the light of the world,” we have some sense of what he meant. John wrote of Jesus, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not over come it.” The reason why John talks about darkness overcoming light is because this is what always happens.
In the correctional system in which I play some small part I hear talk about the rate of recidivism, the rate at which people who get out of jail go back into it. The downward pull of dark habits together with what sometimes to me an excessive energy in discovering people to be flawed works against the hope that lies in the hearts of people to move on to a good life. Darkness fights against the light of hope.
But it is into the very real darkness that the light of Jesus shines. First, Jesus’ light shines in the message of the Gospel itself. If you and I trust in Jesus, accepting for ourselves the gift of His forgiveness, and then start to live as forgiven people, His light shines on us. Many people who think of themselves as Christians give evidence that they don’t accept that their sins are forgiven, washed away. They linger with feeling of entrapment in their sins. It’s as though they were trapped in a dark room. Jesus’ voice echoes through the centuries, “I died to forgive your sins. Receive my forgiveness. Now live as a forgiven person—let your gratitude now move you.” This forgiveness is the lingering ray of Jesus’ light.
But then I remember Jesus said to His followers, “You are the light of the world.” He told funny stories about people lighting a candle and then hiding it under a bushel basket. He said, “Let your light shine that people may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” I remember at Pentecost little flames of fire were on the heads of 120 people gathered in an upper room in Jerusalem. We usually think of the symbol of fire as the sign of the Holy Spirit. But I wonder if it was the Light of Jesus that settled on each person to reproduce what He had done in His short life.
The Gospel this morning tells us that if we will follow Jesus we will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life. It’s remarkable how much light can be thrown by a small candle. Russell Conwell told of a little girl in his church in the early days of his ministry in Philadelphia. This took place in the early 20th century. Her name was Hattie May Wiatt. The church was drawing so many people that people actually had to rent a place to sit in advance to come to Sunday school. It was a very small place. So there was this Sunday that Hattie May was waiting outside hoping she could buy admission. Pastor Conwell saw her on the way in and picked her up and carried her into the Sunday school. The next day Pastor Conwell was walking by her house and heard she was very sick. He came to pray for her, and told her cheerfully that they were going to have to build a bigger building for their Sunday school. She had saved up 57 cents, which she gave him. It was the first contribution towards the new Sunday school. Time doesn’t allow me to tell the whole story, but that 57 cents swelled so that it became the sum needed to build Temple Baptist Church, and then Temple University that started as a place to educate those who could not afford an education, and Samaritan Hospital.
Hattie May died, but her little flame shined an immense light. The Wiatt Mite Society was formed in that congregation in her memory, that took small gifts and made much good of them in that city.
I tell this story because it illustrates how even the smallest light can have great effect. Jesus illustrated the same truth when He took a school boy’s lunch of five loaves and two small fish, and fed 5000 men plus women and children. John said of Jesus, “He was the true light that lightens everyone.” And Jesus says to you and me, on whom He has shined His light, “let your light shine so well that others may see it and glorify God because of you.”
Are you letting your light shine? Or is your light hidden for reasons you think are good. The darkness is always trying to blow out the light. There are so many kinds of darkness: anger, envy, despair, worry, financial need, temptations that have the best of people. Light your candle from Jesus, the Light of the world. Jesus offers you light—forgiveness, a sense of worth, a sense of hope. Now let your light shine.
I see our call here at Faith Church, as in every such place, to encourage the shining of light, big lights as some of you may have, and small lights. But let your light shine. It reflects Jesus’ light, and will lighten your darkness, whatever it may be, and shed light on the darkness of others too.
Stuart D. Robertson, Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at December 12, 2004 09:30 AM