A sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Alan Meyers during worship at Oak Hill Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, MO on Sunday, March 26, 2017. Text: John 9:1-41 A mother said to her little boy, "Johnny, last night there were two pieces of cake on the shelf here. This morning there's only one. How do you explain that?" piece." Johnny said, "Well, it was dark last night. I guess I just didn't see the other Light is an absolute necessity. We must have light. Think back to the last time there was an electric power failure. Remember how you scrambled for flashlights and matches and candles. Think about the green plants that need light to grow and thrive: light gives life. Or think about how any of us can get depressed when the sun doesn't shine for a few days, and it's dark and gloomy. Some people have an especially serious case of that, and then it's called Seasonal Affective Disorder. Light lifts us up, it raises our spirits. Where there's light, there's hope: that's why when we're going through a bad time we speak of "the light at the end of the tunnel." It's one of the basic necessities of life. We need light.
2 The Scripture readings from the Lectionary for this Fourth Sunday in Lent are focused on light. In our reading from the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "I am the light of the world --" and then he gives light to a man who was blind from the time he was born. He makes this man able to see for the first time in his life. Jesus literally gives light to darkened eyes. But is this all? Is this all that Jesus means when he says "I am the light of the world?" Does he mean only this, that he can heal people who are physically blind? Well, no, of course not. We saw last Sunday how Jesus talked with the Samaritan woman whom he met at the well, and he talked then about water, which is like light, it's another thing that's necessary for life, water is. And Jesus said he could give "living water," by which he meant he could give us something as precious, something as necessary for a real, full, human life, as ordinary water is for the life of our bodies. We heard a wonderful sermon here last Sunday about what that "living water" would have meant to that woman, how it meant that she could know that she was loved by God, valued and cared about, so that she could then go and share God's love with other people. "Living water" is a symbol, a metaphor, for what Jesus gave to that woman, and for what he can give to us.
3 Well, this Sunday, we find Jesus saying he can give us light. And that's another symbol, another metaphor. Jesus is the light of the world -- which is to say, he can give us something that can do for us spiritually, in a deeper sense, what light does for us physically, in the ordinary sense. Jesus can do what light does. And he can do this, not only for that man in the story to whom he gave eyesight for the first time. Jesus can give light to you, and to me, and everyone -- to the whole world. Jesus Christ can do for us all what light does. He is "the light of the world." What does light do? Light does two things. One, it makes us able to see, and able to see what the truth of things is. After all, you can't see a piece of cake, or anything else, in a dark room, as Johnny observed. And, Two, light gives life; remember the green plants. Jesus claims to do these same two things: he makes us see the truth, and he gives us life. Let's look at how Christ does each of these two things. Jesus, the light of the world, makes us able to see. He made the man born blind able to see physically, with his two natural eyes. And he makes everyone, everyone who believes in him, able to see spiritually, in a spiritual way. Christ
4 makes us able to see the truth -- the truth about God, and the truth about ourselves. Without Christ, we're not able to know God, to know the truth about God. You might say, we're in the dark about what God is really like. We don't know what God's character is. We don't know what God's attitude is, what his disposition is, toward us. We live in a world of great beauty and wonder -- but it's also a world that's often strange and terrifying and puzzling. This is a world where good and happy things happen, but also bad and tragic things. This is a world where some children laugh and play happily in the sunshine -- but other children starve or get terrible diseases or get caught in the crossfire of war or criminal violence. What is the God who made this world, who stands behind this world, like? Does God love us -- as we might be led to think, from some of the things that happen to us in this world? Or does God hate us, as we might decide is true based on some of the other things that happen? Or is God simply indifferent to us? Does God care about us at all? We need light on this question, this biggest of questions. We need to have God come into our midst, and show us what he's like, and let us know once and for
5 all how he is disposed toward us. We need light to chase away the darkness that hides God from us. And for us who believe in him, Jesus Christ is that light. In the Scripture reading from John, Jesus tells his disciples that he's going to heal that man who was blind "so that God's works might be revealed in him." Jesus does the works of mercy that he does -- giving sight to those who are blind, healing those who can't walk, curing people who have leprosy -- he does those things to show us that God wants to heal all of us, to let us know that God wants to save this suffering, struggling world. Jesus does his miracles in order to give us light to see what God is really, finally, like, in spite of all the mystery of evil, to show us that God is love, in spite of all that might make us think the contrary. The mightiest miracle of all that Jesus does, his greatest work of mercy, is his death on the cross, and his rising from the dead. God loved you and me enough to give his only Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us. God loved us enough to let his own beloved Son suffer the consequences of our sin, to let him share the burdens of our human predicament, our sin and our death. The cross of Christ throws a brilliant beam of light on who God is. The cross shows us that God is love, one who loves us
6 like a Mother or a Father. The cross also shows us who we are. We're the ones who have been lost, far away from God, so that the cross was necessary. Christ makes us able to see ourselves -- to see how grave and serious our situation is -- and also to see how beloved we are to God, and to what lengths God is willing to go to save us and bring us to himself. Christ, the light of the world, makes us able to see ourselves -- to see, not only how badly off we are without him, but to see what we can become, if we're in him. He shows us how great a human being can really be. He shows us our potential to be beloved, loving, strong, joyful, free children of God. It says in 1 John 3:2, "Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when [Jesus] is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is." Christ shows us that we can be, and someday will be, like him, if only we trust him and give ourselves to him now. So, Christ is called "the light of the world" because, first of all, he makes us
7 able to see -- to see who God is, and to see who we ourselves are. And Christ is also called "the light" because, secondly, he gives life. He shared our death, he went through that experience of dying that you and I and every human being has to go through. The Son of God shared that with us. He shared our death. But then he rose to life again, so that we could share his eternal life. "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." The writer of the Letter to the Ephesians quotes that line, that line that looks like it must have been a line from a popular early Christian hymn, in our reading from Ephesians for today. "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Christ gives us life, just as surely as sunlight gives light to growing things, and so Scripture calls him "the light of the world." The Gospel of John makes it plain, and the whole New Testament makes it plain, that the life that Christ gives begins now. It doesn't begin only after death, it begins now, as soon as anyone has faith in Christ. In the lectionary reading from the Gospel of John for next Sunday, we hear Jesus saying, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die." See, to live and believe in Christ now is to enjoy now a life that cannot be destroyed, even by inevitable death. To live and
8 believe in Christ now is to enjoy now a life of trust in God that overcomes evil; a life of hope that overcomes despair; a life of love that overcomes all meaninglessness, all hatred and fear. To live and believe in Christ is to know the love of God, and to have our own love kindled, our own love for God and for other people. Christ is the light of the world, because he gives us this kind of life, now -- as the light of the spring sun gives life to a world dead in winter. Our readings from Scripture this morning give two warnings. First of all, no one has to accept the light. We can refuse to believe in Jesus, like the Pharisees in the story from John did. That is, we can refuse to believe that Jesus really comes from God, we can reject the faith that God really is the way Jesus tells us and shows us God is. We can say no, and not accept the light Jesus offers to us. But if we turn away from the light we remain in the darkness. And so Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind." If we claim to be able to see without him, if we're satisfied with ourselves, if we think we don't need a Savior, we have condemned ourselves to blindness. Christ is the light of the world. Apart from him, there is only darkness. And the second warning our Scripture readings give us is this: If we do
9 believe in Christ, if we do claim to be in the light, we must act as though we're in the light. Our reading from Ephesians says, "Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light." See, since the light of God's love has shone on us in Christ, we have an obligation to pass that light along, to reflect the light onto the world around us. We have an obligation to live in the right way, and to love others, just as we have been loved by God. Jesus not only said that he himself was the light of the world; he told his followers that they were the light of the world, too. In Matthew 5:14-16, Jesus says, "You are the light of the world... let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven." It is through us, through you and me, through Christians, that the world learns about Christ. People see his light through our light. They see his love for them through our love for them. Jesus says, in John 8:12, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life." May we follow him, and may we walk in his light always. Amen.