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By Pastor Glenn Pease
A young man went from paper to paper trying to get a job as a cartoonist, but he was rejected and told he had no talent.
Finally, a pastor hired him to draw advertising for the church events.
It was a poor paying job, and he had no place to stay, and so he was allowed to sleep in the old church manse.
One morning as the sun rose he was awakened by the noise of scurrying mice, and this gave him an idea.
He began to sketch one of those church mice, and that morning one of the most famous of fictional characters was born-Mickey Mouse.
Walt Disney always looked back on that morning as the dawn of his career.
Amazing and wondrous things happen in history, and in our physical world when the Sun, the light of our world, rises.
Everyday is a new adventure in life as we rise from the darkness of night, and walk into the light where God promises His mercies are new every morning.
What a wondrous thing is light.
The poet said,
Out of the scabbard of the night
By God's hand drawn,
Flashes his shining sword of light,
And lo-the dawn.
Every dawn is a wonder, but never has there been a more wondrous dawn than that on which the sun arose for the first time on this planet when it's creator was one of the inhabitants.
Through Him all things were made and now He is a part of His own creation.
The artist has entered his own painting.
The author has become a character in his own drama.
It is a wonder beyond all wonders for on that first Christmas dawn the light of our physical world was shining down on the light of our spiritual world.
It was a dawn of a new day in a new way, for never before in history had the sun ever risen on Him who is the origin of all light.
John was so dazzled by the light of Christ that he became the apostle of light and used the word light in his Gospel more than all the others put together.
In this opening chapter of his Gospel he gives us some of the most amazing revelation about this light that came into the world on that first Christmas.
The first thing we want to look at is-
I. THE WONDER OF HIS LIGHT.
John makes some statements here about Jesus that are as mysterious and beyond comprehension as physical light is to science.
Light is the very essence of science, and everything that is wondrous about science revolves around light.
Science and theology have this in common for all theology also revolves around light.
In verse 4 John says, the life of Jesus was the light of men, and then in verse 9 he says, the true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
Later in John, Jesus says, I am the light of the world.
The more you know about the wonders of light, the more you know about the wonder of God's Christmas light-His only begotten Son.
Light and Jesus have so much in common.
It is as if light is an expression of His image.
For centuries scientists debated the nature of light just as theologians debated the nature of Christ.
Was light a wave or a particle?
It was so hard to decide because light was so creative it could be either.
In 1905 Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize for his paper on light.
He proved that the whole controversy over light was nonsense, for light did not have to be one or the other.
It could be, and it was, both.
Light, he proved, has a dual nature.
So also, theologians have debated the issue-was Jesus God or man?
Oceans of ink have been used on both sides.
But the Bible makes it clear that this too is nonsense.
Jesus, like light, has a dual nature.
He is not God or man, but both God and man.
The Word who was God became flesh and lived among us.
Just as scientists had to face up to the reality that light has a dual nature which is contradictory, so theologians had to face up to the reality that the light of the world is both God and man.
It may not be easy to grasp, but light does not have to be logical.
It is the absolute of science and theology, and man has to bow to it's power to be dual in nature.
The very first thing that God called good was light.
He began the process of creation of all order by saying, "let there be light."
Then He said the light was good.
Everything else that He made He made in the light and He made all life dependent upon light.
Christmas marks the beginning of a new creation.
When Jesus was born God was saying for the second time, let there be light.
Thus began the creation of a new order based on the light of His Son.
The wonder of this Christmas Light is that it is as universal as the physical light of the sun.
John says Jesus is the true light that gives light to every man.
Christmas is the most universal of holidays, for even the most worldly people get involved, even if they do not know it's true meaning.
Light shines on all men even if they are blind and cannot see it.
Christmas is the most unique of all holidays because God gives His light to all men even if they are not aware of it.
The wonder is that every human being on this planet has a right to receive God's gift of light, and thus, become a child of God.
Spurgeon said, "The most despotic monarch cannot enclose the light for himself.
The meanest beggar takes a royal share.
It cannot be monopolized, but pays its gladsome visits to all alike.
Even thus Scriptures reveal the freeness of divine grace and experience shows that it shines on the poorest and the simplest, and it enlightens the foolish and the ignorant."
Take away light and you take away life for darkness cannot produce life or sustain it.
Only light can give life.
There is no power in the universe like the power of light.
It is the source, not only of life, but of joy, pleasure and healing and all that makes life worthwhile.
Jesus is all of this to the spiritual life of man.
And the wonder of it is that it comes to us like the light of the sun, not like the thunder, but quietly.
How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given.
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
Light is the greatest power in the universe yet it works so gently.
A thread has more power to stop you than millions of rays of light.
We can pass through them with no resistance at all, and feel no pressure as they flood our bodies with life-giving power.
Jesus is the wondrous light that can silently enter our lives and give us victory over the power of darkness.
In one December issue of Discover, there is an article about physicist John Asmus and his wonderful flashblaster.
He travels around the world with a light machine which can clean corroded works of art.
It restores them to their original white marble.
Chemicals of all kinds have been used, but they do damage to the marble.
To art conservators around the world, Asmus is a sort of technical missionary saving works of art by means of light.
He can focus an intense flash of light-millions of watts packed into a spot smaller than a dime-which heats a black crust of gypsum to as much as 3 thousand degrees.
Then with a pop it is vaporized in a millionth of a second leaving the surface clean.
Beautiful works of art in museums and churches all over Europe, which have turned black by centuries of pollution, are being restored to their original white beauty by his flashblaster.
God gave the world a spiritual flashblaster on that first Christmas.
Jesus is the only light that can cleanse God's highest and most noble work of art-man.
Man has been corroded by sin and has lost the luster of his original purity.
Nothing can restore him but the light of Christ.
John says, "If we confess our sin He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
The light of the world working in total silence can focus on our sins and vaporize them, and leave us clean in an instant.
Thank God for this wondrous gift of light at Christmas.
Man will go on discovering wondrous ways to use light.
The plan is for a garbage disposal system where a laser will simply vaporize all of our garbage.
But on the spiritual level there can be no improvement for Jesus is our light, and He can vaporize our spiritual garbage right now.
John Asmus, who developed the flashbaster, also worked on 6 devices for Star Wars.
Modern man knows that light is the key to the best weapons of the future.
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