Jesus, Light of the World (John 8:12) Pastor Peter Yi August 12, 2018 (John 8:12) 12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. Light and darkness are one of those things that we are so familiar with that we don t think much of it. It s as familiar as the air we breathe or the ground that we walk on. It s just a part of our daily existence. To a great degree we take light for granted due to all the modern conveniences that came with the discovery of electricity and batteries. It s only on the rare occasion that we experience the difficulties of having no light, like during a power outage where we dig out the candles and we realize again how dependent we ve become of light. Or, when we go camping we get a glimpse of life revolving around the schedule of the sun. When it gets dark, we turn in to go to sleep much earlier than we normally would do if we were at our homes, but even when camping, we have the light from the moon and the stars. It s never completely dark. In our modern lives there are very few times where we ve experienced the complete absence of light. There s always a nightlight in the hallway. There s the glow of a streetlight outside or the headlights of a car that passes by or even the glow of the clock on the microwave oven. I did have one such experience. Several years ago when our kids were younger we took them to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. It claims to be the longest underground cave in the world. So, you pay your entrance fee and join a tour led by one of the park staff. Once you enter the cave, of course there s no more sunlight, but the path is still well lit by light bulbs. They take you through all these passages of varying widths. Some are as wide as this room and other paths you can only go through single file, but at one point in the tour, they take you into this cavernous part of the cave. It s very wide and the ceiling is very tall. The guide starts to speak about the history behind this part of the cave and of course this part of the cave is well illuminated by light bulbs, but then comes the part when the tour guide tells us that she s going to turn off the lights and when she did, that darkness became the darkest darkness that I ve ever experienced. I did all kinds of things to try to squeeze some light into my eyes. I waited a few seconds to see if my eyes needed to adjust. Then I placed my hand in front of my eyes and strained to see my hand and I couldn t. I couldn t make out even the slightest outline of my hand. This was the only time where I experienced the complete, total, utter absence of light. Imagine for yourselves what it would have been like if you were in that cave by yourself and the only light you had was the light of your phone, and your battery was getting really low, until your phone completely died. How would you get back? You d reach out your hands, waving them from side to side to find a wall and then hope and pray that this wall would lead you out. Or maybe you d get on your hands and knees and crawl, so that you wouldn t fall down into a deep crevasse. 650 McNicoll Avenue, North York, Ontario, M2H 2E1 Page 1 of 5
That makes me think of my brother s dog named Brownie. Brownie is such a sweet dog, but she s as blind as a bat, as the saying goes. Well bats are not that blind so brownie would be even blinder than a bat. She has cataracts so that now her once pretty brown eyes are now a milky white, which looks a bit creepy, but she s still the same old sweet Brownie. But ever since becoming blind Brownie s life has changed forever. Before, if you called her, she d come running down the stairs to jump on you. Now, it takes her ten minutes as she carefully navigates each step, with uncertainty. She moves about the house making her way to the backyard by bumping into at least ten different things, a fan, a table, a doorway. You have to continue calling out her name so she can listen her way to you and, of course, Brownie who was once so jumpy and active, now spends all of her time just lying on her doggie bed. That s what has happened to her because for her world there is no light. So, imagine with me once again, a cave of utter darkness, the complete absence of light and then think of what it would be like to be blind, unable to see and trying to get around your home, or even more frightening, going outside. I m always amazed when I see a blind, visually impaired person making their way on the sidewalks and especially at street intersections. It s to a situation like this that Jesus says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. The themes of darkness and light run throughout the bible, from the very first chapter to the very last book. In the very first chapter of the bible in Genesis 1, it says, 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening, and there was morning the first day. (Genesis 1:2 5) Before there was anything, there was God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, and there was darkness. Light only came into the universe when God spoke it, when He created it into existence, but note something very important here. The sun and moon have yet to be created. That didn t occur until day four. So, the light that God created on the first day was a different kind of light, perhaps a light that illuminated from God himself. Then in the second to last chapter of the Bible, in Revelation 21, the same John who wrote the gospel of John says regarding the new heavens and the new earth, in describing what the world will look like after Jesus returns, says, 22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. 25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. (Revelation 21:22 25) 650 McNicoll Avenue, North York, Ontario, M2H 2E1 Page 2 of 5
In John s gospel alone the word light occurs 25 times. I want to highlight a few of them. Remember how the gospel started? It began with those famous three words, In the beginning which would make every reader think of what? Genesis 1:1, which is where the creation of light is first mentioned. So, John 1:1 says, In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word of course is referring to Jesus. Then just a couple verses down in verses 4-5 John writes, In him was life, and that life was the light of mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John is still referring to Jesus. In verse 1, Jesus is the Word. In verses 4-5 Jesus is the light and he shines his light in the darkness. In Genesis 1, darkness referred to the absence of anything created. It was the absence of life. No trees, no plants, no sun, no moon, no stars, no animals, no people. It was just dark. In John 1, the light shines in the darkness again, and here too, the light is not referring to the sun, it refers to Jesus as the light. So Jesus enters this world and shines his light in the darkness. His light shines for all mankind. Or you can say that his entrance in the world is the shining of a supernatural light. But in what way is the world dark? In what way is mankind dark? Well the answer comes just a couple chapters later in chapter 3:19. Listen very carefully. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. (John 3:19 21) The key word is evil, which is similar to the word, sin. Evil deeds are sinful deeds. Sinful deeds are things that we do that are against the laws and commands of God. But John tells us something very insightful about sin and about us. Listen for two words that are opposites and it s not the words darkness and light. Let me read it for you again. Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light. Did you catch it? The two opposite words are love and hate. What do people love? They love darkness. What do people hate? They hate light. Here s an example. Let s say it s bedtime. Mom and dad come into your room, read you a story pray for you, kiss you on the forehead, say goodnight, turn off the light, and close the door. So, it s dark in your room and you have a secret. Under your pillow is an ipad and once your parents leave and close the door, you pull out the ipad and start playing games, start surfing the internet, you re disobeying your parents. You wouldn t be able to do it in broad daylight because they would see you. So, you do it in the dark and then a few minutes later your parents open your door turn on the lights and you re caught. At that moment, you hate the light because you ve been exposed, you ve been caught. Now, even though that s an example for small children, it s the same for teenagers and for adults. Whenever we sin, we hide from God s light. When we sin we look for dark places in our lives and in our hearts. We go to dark places because we love the darkness and when we love the darkness, we hate the light, because we don t want to be found out. We don t want to face the truth that we are sinners, that our hearts are evil. 650 McNicoll Avenue, North York, Ontario, M2H 2E1 Page 3 of 5
If you are a Christian, think of your heart as a house full of light. Jesus has entered your heart and he s shining his light everywhere. His light is shining in your bedroom so that we don t sin in our bedrooms. His light is shining in the living room so that we don t sin our living rooms. He s shining in the kitchen so that we don t sin our kitchen. His light is shining in the closet where we used to keep our bad habits and he cleans out the closet with his light. His light is shining in the entire house of your heart. Then temptation comes and you start thinking about whether you should give in to the temptation. And so the light in that room starts to get dim and once you decide to sin, it s as if you went into a room, pulled the curtains shut, turned off the lights so that the light of Jesus doesn t come in. The last thing you want is for Jesus to be in the room with you while you re sinning. So, you, at least for that moment, remove Jesus from your mind, and you only focus on your sin. Jesus is still there, because the presence of Christ is always with his children, but we mentally remove him, or ignore him, and we commit the sin and for a brief moment we feel good. We feel good about the sin, but then the light comes on again. Jesus comes back into the dark room and turns on the light and now we ve been exposed. Many people object to the Christian teaching that people are evil, that they love darkness. They believe that people are generally good, with a few bad apples. I will give you just one test to prove that you are wrong and that God is right, that the teaching of the bible is right. The Golden Rule What is the Golden Rule? It s a rule that is seen as the greatest ethic of all time. If you have a problem with that claim, if you disagree, then please, share with me, after the service, what you think is history s greatest ethic. It goes like this. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This rule was spoken first by Jesus Christ. There was a similar ethical statement that was spoken before Jesus and it went like this. Don t do unto others what you wouldn t want them to do unto you., but if you were to compare the two, they are worlds apart and the statement from Jesus is a million times more difficult. It s the difference between doing and not doing. So, here s the test. Try to live out the Golden Rule for one day. Try to practice it at school, with your neighbors, at your work, with your sworn enemies, with your in-laws, with complete strangers, with terrorists, with every human being you come in contact with. The reason we cannot do it is because we love ourselves too much. We love ourselves more than we love God and we love ourselves more than we love others. That s another way of saying that we love the darkness, rather than loving the light. Let me push this further. If we zoom out of our personal lives, and go out so we can see the entire earth in our field of vision, what would we see? Would we see a world full of love? Or would we see a world full of evil? Try to be as honest and as realistic as possible. What s the motivation behind all business practices in general? Self-interest. What s the motivation behind governments and nations? Self-interest. What s the reason for nearly all of the world s global problems? Human trafficking. Slavery. Child labor. Exploitation of women. Abortion. War. Arms races. Malnutrition and starvation. Isn t the root of these problems found in human self-interest, in our self-centeredness, in our inability to live out the Golden Rule, but more than that, our utter unwillingness to live it out? 650 McNicoll Avenue, North York, Ontario, M2H 2E1 Page 4 of 5
This is the world to which Jesus comes and says, I am the Light of the world. It s to each person s dark heart that Jesus comes and says, I am the Light of the world. To the world and to each individual Jesus says, It doesn t have to be that way. You don t have to live in darkness. You don t have to be stuck in your sin. You don t have to be lost in your selfcenteredness. Your heart doesn t have to remain evil. Light can shine in your life. How does Jesus become the light to our darkness? Think of it like this. The sun is there for everyone, right? Everyone can enjoy the benefits of the sun. We can feel its warmth. We can have our paths illuminated by the radiance of the sun. We can enjoy the life that it gives in plants, trees, animals and humans. But the only way to take advantage of the sun is by going outside. If you remain inside, in the darkness of the cave, then what the sun is doing outside makes absolutely no difference to you. To receive the benefits of the sun, you have to go outside. In the same way, in order to receive and enjoy the benefits of the life-giving light of Jesus, you have to do a couple things. 1. You have to leave your darkness. That means you have to leave your life of sin. You have to confess to God that you are a sinner and that you deserve his judgment. You have to repent of your sins. That means, that you have to do a 180 degree turn away from sin, and go in the opposite direction toward God. 2. You have to believe, or another way to say it is trust or depend. Believe what? Trust in what? Depend on what? You have to believe that Jesus is the only true light. That means you believe that Jesus came and died and rose again in order to remove the darkness of sin from your life. Jesus says that he stands at the door and knocks. Open the door, welcome him into your darkness and he will be the light that you so very much need. Let s pray. 650 McNicoll Avenue, North York, Ontario, M2H 2E1 Page 5 of 5