Step Into The Light

Lent

Title: “Step Into the Light” Bottom Line: The Light has come—step into it and live.

Several years ago, I was driving home late one night down a dark stretch of road. No streetlights. No houses. Just blackness. My headlights were the only thing cutting through the dark. And as long as I stayed behind those lights, I could see clearly. But every time the road curved, I had a choice—trust the light and follow it… or hesitate and drift toward the darkness.

Darkness has a way of disorienting you. It makes you unsure. It makes you anxious. It makes you second-guess what you know to be true. And that’s where we find Nicodemus.

John tells us at the beginning of chapter 3 that Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. That detail matters. Nicodemus is a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews, a teacher of Israel. He is educated. Respected. Religious. He knows the Scriptures. If anyone should understand eternal life, it should be him. And yet he comes to Jesus in the dark.

He says, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God.” He is curious. He is cautious. He is searching. Beneath his religious exterior is a question: What must I do to inherit eternal life? How do I enter the kingdom of God? Jesus tells him he must be born again—born from above. Not just improved. Not just informed. Reborn.

Nicodemus struggles with that. How can a grown man be born again? He is thinking in earthly categories. Jesus is speaking in eternal ones. And then Jesus says something that shifts the entire conversation. In verse 14, He reaches back into Israel’s history: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”

He’s referring to Numbers 21. The Israelites had rebelled against God. Poisonous snakes invaded the camp. People were dying. And God instructed Moses to lift up a bronze serpent on a pole. Anyone who had been bitten could look at it—and live.

They didn’t earn healing. They didn’t work for it. They didn’t prove themselves worthy of it. They simply looked—and lived. Jesus is saying, That story was about Me. Just as the serpent was lifted up, so the Son of Man will be lifted up. On a cross. In shame. In suffering. So that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.

And then comes the verse that many of us can quote from memory: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Nicodemus came asking what he must do. Jesus answers by telling him what God has done. God loved. God gave. God sent.

Notice what it does not say. It does not say, “For God was so fed up with the world…” It does not say, “For God was so disappointed…” It says, “For God so loved.” And not just loved Israel. Not just loved the religious. Not just loved the moral. God loved the world. The rebellious. The broken. The confused. The ones hiding in the dark. Lent is the season when we confront our darkness. We acknowledge our sin. We face our mortality. We remember that we are dust. But this passage reminds us that the story does not end in condemnation.

Verse 17 says, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” Nicodemus may have expected correction. Rebuke. Instruction. Instead, Jesus offers salvation. But then Jesus presses further. And this is where it gets uncomfortable.

“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.” Here is the tension. The problem is not that the light hasn’t come. The problem is that we sometimes prefer the dark. Darkness lets us hide. Darkness lets us pretend. Darkness lets us protect the version of ourselves we don’t want exposed.

Light reveals. Light exposes. Light heals—but only if we’re willing to step into it. Jesus says, “Everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.” That’s why Nicodemus comes at night. He is interested in Jesus—but he is not yet ready to stand in the light.

And if we are honest, neither are we. We want eternal life. We want forgiveness. We want hope. But we do not always want exposure. Yet verse 21 offers hope: “But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God.”

Notice the shift. Coming to the light is not about proving yourself righteous. It is about allowing God to work in you. It is about stepping forward in trust. Back to that dark road. The only way I made it home that night was by staying behind the headlights. I couldn’t see the whole journey. I couldn’t see miles ahead. I could only see what the light revealed in front of me.

But that was enough. Nicodemus came in the dark. But if you follow his story through the Gospel of John, something changes. In John 7, he cautiously defends Jesus before the Pharisees. And in John 19, after Jesus has been lifted up on the cross, Nicodemus appears again—this time in the daylight—bringing spices to prepare Jesus’ body for burial.

The man who once came at night is now standing publicly with the crucified Christ. He stepped into the light. Lent invites us to do exactly that.

Lent is not just a countdown to Easter. It is not just a season of giving something up. It is a season of stepping into the light. For forty days, the Church slows down. We examine our hearts. We name our sin. We remember our mortality. We hear again the words spoken over ashes: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” That can feel heavy. It should feel honest.

But Lent is not about wallowing in guilt. It is about walking into truth. When we confess our sin during Lent, we are not crawling toward condemnation—we are stepping into light. When we acknowledge our frailty, we are not surrendering to despair—we are positioning ourselves to receive grace.

The cross stands at the center of Lent. And what is the cross except the Son of Man lifted up? Jesus told Nicodemus that He would be lifted up so that whoever believes would have life. Lent walks us slowly, deliberately, toward that lifting up.

We do not rush to Easter. We walk through the wilderness. We walk through repentance. We walk through exposure. But we walk toward love. Because the same God who calls us to examine our hearts is the God who so loved the world. The same Light that exposes our darkness is the Light that saves us from it.

Nicodemus came at night, unsure and searching. Many of us begin Lent the same way—quietly aware that something in us needs attention. Something needs healing. Something needs surrender.

And here is the good news of Lent: You do not step into the light to be destroyed. You step into the light to be reborn. The Israelites looked at the bronze serpent and lived. We look at the cross and live.

And every time we confess, every time we repent, every time we turn back toward Christ, we are doing what Jesus invited Nicodemus to do—we are stepping out of the shadows and into life.