I am the Light of the World

Good morning, welcome, please open your Bibles to John 8.

Imagine a scene with me, to the best of your ability.

Enslaved for 400 years in Egypt. Put in perspective, since around 1650.

When all hope was gone, God saved you and your people from bondage and you have been cast out from Egypt.

As you and your people leave, you discover you don’t really know where you’re going.

Resting on a promise given to Moses in Exodus 3- I will bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey.

How will you get there? You don’t know where anything is. You’ve been enslaved for so long.

God, the promise maker, makes another promise. I will lead you where you are going.

Exodus 13:21–22- “And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.”

Have you ever considered the way the Israelites must have felt in wandering through the wilderness?

Oscar Joseph- “God’s people were not led by a road already made and used, and which they could have studies from beginning to end on a map before starting; but they were led day by day, and step by step, by a living guide, who chose a route never before trodden. They had to wait in ignorance till their guiding pillar moved, and follow it in ignorance till it halted.”

This is the existence of an entire people group. Wandering, following after the presence and the promise of God.

Perhaps for many, this is life today. Not knowing where the next step will land. Wandering through life and trying our best to gain some sense of direction.

The Jews celebrated the pillar of fire and light at the Feast of Tabernacles with four great candelabras, each with four bowls filled with oil that were lit in the temple court.

The light from these 16 bowls filled the temple with light.

The lights had likely already been extinguished at the close of the celebration, and Jesus stands to speak.

Read John 8:12- “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”

Pray.

1. What does it mean to be walking in darkness?

Walking.

Peripateo- to walk around, or to tread about. The trodden paths of life.

John 6:66- “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.”

Turned away not only from a walk with Jesus, but from living life with Jesus.

When Jesus describes those living in darkness, he means those whose entire lives are defined by darkness.

This begs the question- What is this darkness?

We have spoken much of light, and what is meant by this image, but what is meant when John uses the language of darkness?

Darkness.

Realm of ignorance and folly.

Psalm 82:3–5- “Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.”

Darkness described as a lack of knowledge.

Perhaps we can imagine one being blind, not having a clear grasp on the reality of the situation.

Talking to teenagers about how they will parent. Speaking from a place of ignorance and folly.

Realm of evil and fear.

Proverbs 2:13–15- “…who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.”

This is the idea of hiddenness.

Kids trying to put something immediately under their shirts, where it can no longer be seen.

Realm of bondage, misery and death.

Isaiah 59:9–10- “Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope for the wall like the blind; we grope like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among those in full vigor we are like dead men.”

A place of helplessness. No end in sight.

Consider the person who has been through, or is currently going through a lot. They are miserable, they feel enslaved to their situations, and they see no resolution.

Recently talking to someone who simply said that he no longer enjoys this life.

Realm of God’s judgement and wrath.

1 Samuel 2:9- “He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness, for not by might shall a man prevail.”

Consider the judgement of God, being cut off from God’s kindness, mercy, forgiveness and favor. Such a place is seen as darkness.

Life apart from Jesus is described in these many ways.

Ignorant, not knowing the reality of this life. Living a sin-stained existence, even if those sins are respectable in the eyes of the world and maybe even the church. Hopeless in living life because there is nothing beyond the borders of our natural existence. The result of all of this is living under God’s wrath, deserving the fullness of His judgement poured out against ourselves.

This is the bad news. But this is advent. This is where we consider that the bad news is not the end of the story for us.

2. Who is able to escape the darkness?

Those who follow Jesus.

Word used to describe the disciples dropping what they were doing to follow Jesus.

Involves a turning away from a former life to a new one.

Matthew 8:22- “And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.’”

Leave behind even a task as personal as burying your own family.

Matthew 16:24- “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’”

Gets even more personal here- leave behind your life, deny yourself, what you have always had before. Stop following yourself into more and more of your own comfort, pick up your cross of self-sacrifice and follow the steps and life of Jesus.

Mark 10:21- “And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’”

Spatial language- those who are close to Jesus- following Jesus.

Spiritual disciplines, being in the Word of God, like warming oneself by a fire.

More closely following Jesus- Less presence of darkness.

3. How does Jesus save from darkness?

Dr. Fauci- “My own personal ethics in life are, I think, enough to keep me going on the right path.”

This is the mindset of many, even in the church. Here is my list of ethical beliefs and moral behaviors which will guide me from the darkness of my life into light.

Even Nicodemus in John 3 needed to be told that His law-following efforts were not enough.

The words of Jesus, then, are telling.

He is light.

If the problem that each of us has is the darkness of life, as described earlier, what we need is not to do better and be better in the darkness, we need a source of light, and it doesn’t come from within.

Light defeats the darkness.

He alone is light.

Importance of the direct object marker- the light, not a light.

All lights are lights only insofar as they reflect and point toward Jesus.

Our good deeds are only good so far as they point to Christ.

Our studies are only good so far as they point to the one, true Light.

Our worship is only good so far as it points to Jesus.

Our witness is only good so far as it points to the person and work of the Son of God.

The problem of darkness has been made clear in the words of Jesus. The only solution? Jesus Himself.

4. How does this prepare our hearts to celebrate the incarnation?

John 8:12- “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”

Light of life.

All of this imagery of Jesus as water, light, bread throughout John’s gospel. The images are always tied to life.

Living water, light of life, the bread of life. More explicitly, Jesus is the resurrection and the life, as well as the way, the truth and the life.

Why is there a constant emphasis on the living nature of these illustrations?

We understand the necessity of bread, of water, and of light. We know that they are needed for physical life.

Oscar Joseph- “He calls Himself the Bread of life, the Water of life, to point out that He is really and eternally what these material things are in the present physical world. All this present constitution of things may pass away, and the time may come when men shall no longer need to be sustained by bread, but the time shall never come when they shall not need life; and this fundamental gift Christ pledges Himself evermore to give.”

The same is true of light. Eternally given to those who follow Jesus. No need to walk in the darkness of life. Jesus is given as light forever.

This advent season, we remember the coming of the light and look forward to His return.

The second person of the godhead took on flesh and humanity to live among us as light.

We celebrate with rejoicing. Ultimately we celebrate with joy, knowing that Christ has come into the world, and brought with Him our means for joy. Joy has truly come into the world.

And look at what Christ has brought with Him.

Isaac Watts- “No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found, far as, far as the curse is found.”

The blessings of Christ are meant to be known wherever the curse is found. Light is meant to penetrate darkness.

Remember the wilderness wanderings. How many do we know in such a position of life?