The
Unique Jesus (3):The Light of The World
- Rev Norman Cameron
One of the things that we take so much for granted in our
modern world is light. We are never far from light. When the sun goes down we
can have light at the flick of a switch or the press of a button. Not only do
we have light in our homes and shops, we have lights even in our streets,
lights that burn all through the night. -
For centuries people lived without
electricity and very little happened at night time. In Jesus’ day night time
was dark, especially in the countryside. When Jesus spoke in the sermon on the mount about a city on a hill being seen and
not hidden he was thinking of
In John 8 Jesus says to the gathered crowd - “I
am the light of the
world”. The potency of this image would have
struck a culture that lived with darkness a lot. It was a startling image. And
of course it spoke not only of physical darkness but Jesus really meant
spiritual darkness. Jesus was not claiming to be a human candle,
he was claiming to bring spiritual light and life, eternal light. But more on this in a moment.
FEAST OF
TABERNACLES & LIGHT
I think it is worthwhile looking at this saying in light of the surrounding
chapters and the context of what happens. It is significant that in the
previous chapter we
have the Feast of the Tabernacles at which Jesus was present. This Feast was
held around September or October and was essentially a harvest celebration for
a week. Symbolically some people would also live in little booths or tents and
offer sacrifices to God.
At the Feast of Tabernacles special lights
would be lit. In the Holy place of the
The menorah within the holy place of the ancient tabernacle was a work of
extraordinary beauty and consisted of three main parts: the base, the shaft and
the branches. Out of the base a vertical shaft arose and from either
side of the shaft there sprang three branches curving outward and upward. Each
of the six branches and the center shaft ended in a cup made in the form of an
open almond flower. At the very top the opened petals of the flower held an oil
lamp. The branches and the central shaft were skillfully decorated with that
same open-almond blossom design with three on each branch and four on the
center shaft. The Lampstand was kept lit all the time.
In addition to this, at the feast of Tabernacles -, four great lights were
lit in the Court of the Women. At the end of the Feast, probably the time John
8 refers to, these lights are put out. So in the context of the Feast that had
just taken place Jesus proclaims that he is the Light of the World.
In fact of all the images that Jesus used the image of him as light is the most
common. In the Gospel of John this image is picked up a number of times and we
are introduced to it at the very beginning of the Gospel
Jóhn l:3 “Through
him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 1n
him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the
darkness, but the darkness has not understood it (or overcome it).”
LIGHT & THE OLD TESTAMENT
John sees Jesus as the fulfilment of the prophecies scattered throughout the
Old Testament, but especially found in the prophecy of Isaiah —
Isaiah 9:2 “The people walking in
darkness have seen a great light, on those living in the shadow of death a
light has dawned.” Is.42:6 “I will
keep you and make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the
Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to
release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”
Is.29:I8 speaking of the age of the Messiah — ‘In that day the deaf Will
hear the words of the scroll and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the
blind will see.
So
the Old Testament makes a lot of the people dwelling in darkness -— this is a spiritual darkness that comes initially from
man fallen and sinful, but it is also a darkness that is couraged and increased
by the disobedience and rebelliousness of the people against God. Ever since Gen.3 the human race has preferred to run
from God and hide from God. In the words of Romans 1:21 “For although
they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but
their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
CREATION & RE-CREATION
So scripture paints this picture of humanity walking around in the gloom. We
need rescued, we need a guiding light,
we need a power that will dispel the gloom.
Now I want you to see an important parallel that John draws between Genesis and
his gospel, between creation and re-creation. We find that John in his first
chapter likens our state to that of Genesis 1. Gen. 1:1-2 says “In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless
and empty, darknss was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was
hovering over the waters. “ God then speaks and brings life and light and order out
of this darkness and chaos.
Then look at John chapter 1. Jn. 1:1 f. “In the beginning was the
word... (an echo of Genesis 1:1)... through him all
things were made (a reinforcement of the creation theme of Genesis 1)... in him
(that is the Word, Jesus) was life and that life was the light of men. The
light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it.”
Just as in Genesis 1 we find physical darkness
over the face of the earth and God speaks and brings light into being so John
in chapter 1 of his Gospel makes the point that Jesus has come to re-create the
world and
to dispel the spiritual darkness that exists in
our hearts and in our world ever since the Fall.
As in Genesis 1 God speaks a word and brings light, so in John 1 God speaks a
new word “Jesus” and light comes again
to dispel darkness and chaos. Do you see what John is doing here.
He is pointing to Jesus as the spoken word that brings light into darkness. He
is the re-creating light, the saving light.
Jesus himself says in John 3:19 “This is the verdict: Light has come
into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light, because their deeds
were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the
light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth
comes into the light...”
Here we have two great opposites in
scripture - darkness and light. This is a running theme in the Bible right the
way from Genesis. God is light, that which is opposed to God is described as
darkness - the absence of light. God’s job
if you like is to dispel darkness. This
is what he did in Genesis. Where He is there is light, where He is not there is
darknes. Jesus is the light of the world. He saw it as His role to come and
dispel the darkness that existed in men and women’s hearts, a darkness that is
there by virtue of us all being fallen and sinful.
DARK HEARTS
The heart without God in it is dark. It is dark because as Romans says we have
exchanged the glory and the light and life of God for nothingness. Why is the
heart darkened when people exchange the glory of God for other things? The
answer is that the only light in the universe that can fill the heart with
light is the glory of God. Take away that glory and you are left with chaos and
formlessness (Genesis 1:1-2). There is no light- producing element in the
heart. All light comes from outside, namely, from the glory of God. (Not from
the sun -we are not talking about physical light, but spiritual light.) Jesus
is the spiritual Light of the world because “he is the glory as of the only
begotten from the Father” (John 1:14).
So we exchange the glory of God and the light of God for the absence of God and
the darkness of the world. That is a tragic exchange and a poor exchange and
you would wonder why we make it. We make it because we are blinded by sin and satan. Jesus came to bring us back to the glory and light of
God. As we engage with Jesus we find the light and the glory of God invades our
hearts and we see things by faith that we never saw before.
Thus Paul prays that the “eyes of our hearts would be enlightened” because
only the prayer-hearing God can enlighten the heart (Ephesians 1:19). And in 2
Corinthians 4:6 Paul says, “God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of
darkness, ‘
is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the
knowledge of the gloryof God in the face of Christ.”
Jesus is the Light of the world. As we draw close to him we find that God’s
light invades our hearts. But for that light to invade our hearts we need to
see Jesus as we have never seen him before. Many of the people with Jesus did
not see him as he was —
they just saw a man, they did not see the God man.
HEALING THE
BLIND
My final point is this. If we want to see spiritually, if we want God to dispel
the darkness that we are born with naturally, if we want God to reverse the
gloom and the myopia which afflicts us then we need him to put his healing
hands upon us and help us to see.
Open my eyes, that I may see
Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me;
Place in my hands the wonderful key
That shall unclasp and set me free.
Silently now I wait for Thee,
Ready my God, Thy will to see,
en my eyes, illumine me,
Spirit divine!
When we look at all the healings that Jesus
did in the Gospel the most recorded are healings of the blind. In John chapter
9 we have a whole chapter devoted to the healing of a man born blind. Remember
I said to you last week that John has seven I AM sayings and he has seven miracles or signs, as he
calls them, in his gospel. Just before Jesus heals this man born blind he says
in 9:3 “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” With that he spits on the ground, makes some mud and
puts it on the man’s eyes. Here is the irony — he takes a blind man and puts mud on his eyes so that he cannot see
even more, even if he could see he would be blinded by mud. Then he asks the
man to do something in faith. Not to touch the mud yet but to go and wash in
the Pool of Siloam.
Today we are told that our teaching methods need to be more interactive. Jesus
was the greatest teacher —
he was way ahead of his time. Here was an
interactive lesson. He takes a blind man and smears mud on his eyes. I wonder
how many followed the man to the pool. If you were there would you have gone
with the man to the Pool. If you had you would have
witnessed a miracle. The man could see. The Pharisees refused to believe this
miracle. They saw Jesus as a Sabbath breaker, a sinner. How could a sinner
heal? The man could only say this — “One thing I know. I was
blind and now 1 see.” It is hard to argue
against this experience.
Almost thirty years ago God opened my eyes to see Jesus as I had never seen him
before. Today God will open eyes in some parts of our world and people will see
Jesus as they have never seen him before and they will welcome him as the light
of the world and the light of their world.
In Matthew 6:22. Jesus said “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then
if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.” My prayer is that your eye will be clear and you will
see Jesus as you have never seen him before. My prayer is that you will see God
as you have never seen him before and my prayer is that you will see this world
and enjoy this world as you have never seen and enjoyed it before because you
will have the light and the glory of God shining into your heart and shining
oIt through your eyes.
You will see things as to transform your life and your living, like the man in
the story, who sees for the first time the beauty of a blue sky and the green
of a ripe olive tree, and the dancing ripples of sunlight on the surface of the
pool, and the light in his healer’s eyes. So you will see life as you have
never seen it before, luminous with the glory of God.
Heaven above is softer blue,
Earth around is sweeter green;
Something lives in every hue,
Christless eyes have never seen:
Birds with gladder songs o ‘erfiow,
Flowers with deeper beauties shine,
Since I know, as now I know,
Jam His and He is mine.
And Jesus said “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will
have the light of life.”