The Light

Think about the darkest place you have ever been.

Maybe you were out camping - tent camping - way out in the woods.

You sat around the campfire until it started feeling late.

And the fire had turned to embers in the fire pit.

So you went to your tent and turned off your flashlight.

And it was so dark, you could feel it.

That’s about when you started hearing the noises in the woods, right?

My darkest place was 140 feet underground in Israel.

The tunnel was about a 1/4 of a mile long.

About two feet wide.

Mostly tall enough to stand up in .

And it had 6 - 8 inches of water running over your feet.

It was not lighted.

At all.

All that stood between me and total terror was a 3 inch, $1.98 flashlight from Walmart.

As long as I kept moving and that flashlight lit up where I was going, I was good.

But if we stopped moving, that’s when the darkness came.

That’s when the demons started creeping in.

That’s the way we work, isn’t it?

When it’s dark, when we can’t see where we are going, that’s when the demons come to play in our heads.

That’s why Jesus says, [John 8:12] “...I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.””

If you’ve ever laid in the dark at night, alone and frightened

Do you remember how you felt when you noticed it was getting light outside?

You might not have stood up and danced, but the darkness in your soul started to disappear, didn’t it?

Of course it did

It happens every time.

[John 1:5] “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Because the darkness can’t overcome the light.

It’s not even a remote possibility.

Science hypothesizes that one day the universe will give up the ghost to entropy.

The last atom of energy will be expended.

Every star in the universe will blink out including our own star

And the universe will succumb to darkness and cold and death.

And that is so depressing to think about.

Everything that has ever been, frozen and floating in space

Cold, alone and dark - forever.

But if you believe what Jesus says, it doesn’t end like that.

No, it ends in a cataclysmic rebuilding.

Where good triumphs and evil is destroyed forever.

It ends with a new heaven and a new earth.

And we believe that.

We’ve seen it happen once before.

The baby was born and brought the light into the world.

But evil was determined to extinguish the light.

And it thought it had.

It nailed Jesus to a cross, killed him and buried him.

But the darkness did not overcome Him.

Jesus burst out of that tomb sending light to every corner of the universe.

He showed us the way.

Because Jesus is the way.

Let me just break this down into the most simple, plain way I can.

I follow Jesus because He knows where He’s going.

And he has invited me to go with Him.

When I was a young man, I ran into a man named Jesus.

He told me I was going the wrong way and I knew He was right.

I was wandering around like I was lost in the dark.

So I changed directions, and I followed Jesus.

It’s that simple.

I’d love to be able to give myself some credit for this but I can’t.

Just like everyone in every gospel that was ever written.

They bumped into Jesus and either they followed Him or they didn’t.

And I did.

Because He showed me that He knew where He was going.

Jesus lights my way.

And every now and again I get scared

Or worried or nervous and when I do, Jesus slows down for me.

But we always keep walking.

And I always keep following.

Because Jesus knows where He’s going

And wherever Jesus is, that’s where I want to be too.

If you will think about it

You have to agree.

You followed Jesus for the same reason.

It doesn’t matter where you have come from

What your past looks like

What horrors you have endured - or what silver spoon you were born with - you found Jesus.

You’ve found the man who knows where He is going.

So you followed Him - and look at you now.

Actually, truthfully, we can’t even take credit for finding Him.

Truth be told, He found us.

He shined His light on our lives, we didn’t like what we saw, then He showed us the path.

The right path

Not to entropy

But to everlasting life.

So we followed Him.

Why is Christmas special?

Because God came down, looking just like us

To show us the way to life

And we took it.

That’s why Christmas is so special to us.

Jesus came - He even had a star shining over His crib to make Him easy to find.

I found a Man who knows where He is going - so I followed Him.

And look at me now.

And you can say the same thing.

The reformers had a declaration that they used that seems so very appropriate.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Glory to God alone.

The light has come, and the light is our hope.

Amen