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October 29, 2006
Jesus, the Light of the World
Isaiah 60: 1-10/John 8: 12-20
October 29th, 2006
Two weeks ago we thought about what Jesus said in Jerusalem one day on the great Jewish Feast of Tabernacles: “If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink.” Before this we remembered that Jesus said, “I am the bread of life . . . I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever.” Today we have heard Jesus say, “I am the light of the world.” Jesus is talking about the life of the spirit, the inner unseen part of us all using terms that refer to physical life.
We are made up two-thirds of water. Food provides the building blocks by which we sustain physical life. Light is needed for this food to grow.
While we take spiritual things in a totally subjective way, indeed in a take-it-or-leave-it kind of way, we all know there is something we can’t put our fingers on that is the difference between discontent and contentment. Why are some people who have everything so discontented? Why are other people who have so very little so content? You and I are much more than physical beings.
A kind friend recently gave me Francis Collins’ book, The Language of God, which I read greedily in a few days. Here the author explained how DNA is the hereditary code of our species. DNA gives the words of God’s vocabulary.
Collins is project director of the Human Genome Project in Washington, DC. Some of us may not be familiar with the term “genome.” A genome includes all the DNA in an organism, including its genes. Genes carry information for making all the proteins that determine, among other things, how an organism looks, how well its body metabolizes food or fights infection, and sometimes even how it behaves. This DNA code operates unseen to the naked eye. But it is evident in its effects. This explains why you resemble your grandma; why I look like my Dad’s Uncle John. Collins expresses his conviction that DNA “speaks” the language of God telling how God unfolds all life.
But is there something beyond DNA? Is there really a Being who speaks the language of DNA? Richard Dawkins, the well-known Oxford biologist, is one of a group of scientists that ridicules the idea of God. But Francis Collins, of like stature as a scientist, sees things differently, that God is not a blind clock-maker, as Dawkins scorns, but a personal Being who desires to be known, to have a relationship with you and me. The longing for meaning we all have is ultimately a longing for God—a response to the light that gives this spark to everyone.
In my many years living in the Purdue community I have come to know well many wonderful scientists, some who believe in God and others who don’t. It has seemed to me that a factor in my friendship with them all has been that I am a pastor. You’d be amused if you knew some of the remarks unbelieving friends have made to me knowing I am a pastor. Whether or not there is a God, somehow a pastor represents the issue of meaning in life.
Why do we physical beings wonder about the meaning of life? Isn’t this desire for meaning evidence that there is more to life than our physical existence?
In the days I was reading Collins’ book I was also thinking about the texts we have read this morning. Isaiah promised that after darkness would cover the earth, the Lord will arise upon you, and the glory of the Lord will be seen.”
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” And we make a connection with what Isaiah said. Jesus went on to say, “He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” We wonder if Jesus was talking about something parallel on the plain of “meaning” to DNA on the physical plain. Jesus said, “The one who follows me will not walk in darkness.” What is this darkness of which the Bible speaks so often?
We began our service this morning remembering the first words of the Bible. The Hebrew Bible described the prevailing condition as tohuvevohu. “Without form and void,” our Bibles translate this. “Darkness was on the surface of the abyss.” The Hebrew term tohuvevohu sounds like gobbledygook, but I really like it. It suggests chaos. It’s like a Marathi word I learned growing up in India and sometimes say, “wakerdeetickadee.” It means, total confusion. Tohuvevohu indeed. Chaos: utter darkness, shapelessness, bloblness. Then God the Son heard the Father speak. “Light, be there on that wakerdeetikadee tohuvevohu.”
What was this light? This was a different light than the light that came from the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day. The ancient writer was pointing to that something greater than the physical that hovers over, indeed precedes and makes possible all of physical life.
It was the touch of this light that made possible the separation of dry from water. In John’s Gospel we read, “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” The light of the sun can be blocked so there is shade or darkness. The light that came before the light of the sun cannot be extinguished. This light reflects the will of God. Though we were created by the will of God. God has given us the privilege of accepting or rejecting it. It is natural to us to insist on our own way. This reflects God—whose will acted in creation. Sometimes this turns out pretty badly. Then we are in the dark.
When the Bible mentions darkness it uses a term that means chaos, ignorance, and evil and not just the absence of light. Indeed, when we are asleep we’re happy to have light hide for a while.
The sun’s light shines on Iraq, but Iraq today is a land in the darkness of chaos. I learned when I was in Zambia of customs that subjected women to horrendous ordeals after the death of their husbands; this was the darkness of ignorance. In Darfur we see the grim darkness of evil. But we don’t have to look far away to Iraq, Zambia, or Darfur to find darkness.
You and I know that there are many homes, the basic social unit in our prosperous land, that are in terrible darkness. We were reminded of this darkness recently when we read in the newspapers of a mother who beat her little girl to death and a dad who let it happen. What long months and years of frustration and misery led to this young mother’s violence to her child? Why was she so deeply unhappy? This is opposite to instinct of motherhood.
Come to the local jail that warehouses people whose lives are in disarray. They are only the tip of the iceberg. Why road-rage, that fury that erupts in decent people when someone invades our space on the street? Why the fascination with courts and cops and prisons as entertainment? Why are we so preoccupied with terrorism when we have the most powerful defense force in the world? We’ve never had a roadside bomb go off in West Lafayette. Why all the darkness? Why are churches in turmoil even though their message is about the Light of the world? How are things in your family?
It is because the message of the Gospel is not just that the light has shined on our darkness but that “the one who follows Jesus will not walk in darkness but have the light of life.” It takes more than piously saying, Jesus is the Light. Old Screwtape loves to hear us talk of Jesus this way—as it may keep us from trying to follow Him. I sometimes think of the Gospel-light the way we speak of those who will not take opportunity when it comes knocking: “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.”
George MacDonald remarked in one of his sermons, “Foolish is the one . . . who would rid himself or his fellows of discomfort by setting the world right, by waging war on the evils around him, while he neglects that integral part of the world where lies his business, his first business—namely, his own character and conduct.”
We may be acutely aware of the darkness out there while not noticing the darkness in here. We are aware in principle of this problem because we talk about it—all that’s wrong out there. But we hold at arm’s length the cure. If you and I will follow Jesus we will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life. We must draw a circle, step inside, and say, “Let it happen here.” Take a vacation from your concern about the darkness in others, and let there be light in your circle.
In Proverbs 20: 27 we read, “the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.” What a suggestive term. It points to what Paul wrote in describing the momentum of the Gospel “through faith for faith.” When I who have no faith see it in you, it plants a seed in my heart.
We speak of faith as a gift of God, and so it is. But like any gift offered to us we have to reach out and take it. If it is indeed this gift of faith that we have taken it will trigger a battle of wills inside. Jesus said, “My will is to do the will of Him who sent me.” There was potentially a collision of wills there this suggests. It is obvious in us.
Is there a battle of wills going on in you when you feel disgusted with someone? Do you feel tension arise in you at that moment that says, “Maybe I’m harder on her than on myself?” Does a voice inside say, “Am I judging myself by the same standard?” Does something tug at your conscience saying, “I don’t see the whole picture.” Is there any momentum inside that asks, “Can this be the will of God for me now?”
When you are tempted in the various ways we all are tempted, is there any responding voice to the allure of that temptation that asks you forcefully, “If this were the last thing I did would I be glad to stand in the presence of God?” Is there any higher voice that asks, “Would Jesus be welcome to join me in this?” When you speak to others is there a filter on your words that asks, “Will I destroy or build up with what I say?”
What good effect there is from one whose will is coming under submission to the will of God. “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord,” Proverbs tells us. From your will God can and will light the candle of someone else and dispel her darkness.
On Christmas Eve we end the service with the lights turned off. I light a candle and then I go to each section and light a candle someone is holding. And from that light all the candles in the sanctuary are lit until a beautiful light radiates the room. Our young people like to sing, “It only takes a spark to get a candle glowing.” So it is.
A momentum can begin in one person who determines to do as much of the will of God as she understands. Your spirit is the candle of the Lord from which He will light another candle. Every admirable trait you have seen in anyone that you recognize is special in an uncanny way as living the Jesus-life is just as available to you. But this comes to us only if it is our purpose to follow the Light who is Jesus. He is the candle who give meaning to us who live in the oft darkness of this troubled day.
One further thing. Jesus specifically asked us to join Him in dispelling the darkness now as He dispelled the darkness before Creation. Not by preaching at it, but in this way, “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” It’s pretty hard to argue that light is not there if it shines brightly. You and I are the best argument in a dark world that there is a God who has given meaning to life if we shine where we are. Think on this and do as you see is right.
Let us pray: Thank you, heavenly Father, for sending us the Light, your Son, Jesus. Help us to follow Him. Help us to shine with His light. Amen.
Pastor Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at October 29, 2006 09:30 AM