The Glory of God—Light for Muddling Sinners

Lord, open our eyes that we may see wonderful things in your Word.

It was a cold and rainy night around this time of year about a dozen years ago. I stood outside my professor’s house and rang the doorbell and waited. His wife came to the door. I knew her and she knew me—her son was in my class and a good friend of mine, but he wasn’t home at the time—but she also knew it was strange for me to be stopping by so late. Professor left his glasses in the pulpit at Trinity. I handed her the glasses as she shouted to her husband about forgetting his glasses again. He had been a professor at the Seminary for most of my lifetime. But his memory was still sharp. So how did he forget something so important as his glasses?

Well, if you wear glasses, you already know the answer. As important as they may be, eyeglasses are still easy to misplace. Likely to be left behind. And that’s because many times, many people who know they need glasses can still muddle through life without them.

Many live this way—spiritual speaking. Many are muddling through life in this world with a worldview that is anything but a clear or truthful. That’s what the Apostle Paul tells us in (2 Cor. 4:3-4) Our Gospel is veiled…to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the Gospel that displays the glory of Christ.

This was the case throughout Jesus’ life and ministry, wasn’t it? The good news that this man from Nazareth, this teacher from Galilee, was God’s only Son was the King of kings, Lord of lords, and the Savior of the nations, wasn’t always evident to everyone around Jesus.

There were so many who only saw him through the veil of his humanity. Do you remember his homecoming, when he went back to Nazareth? That’s (Luke 4:16) where he had been brought up. On the Sabbath day, he went into the synagogue, as was his custom, to read the Scriptures and teach the people of his hometown about the good news and the Lord’s favor? At first, all spoke well of him and were amazed at his words. But as he continued they began to grow upset with him. What right does Joseph’s son have to lecture us? What authority does he have to say that (Luke 4:24) no prophet is accepted in his hometown?

Things got so out of hand that all the people in the synagogue (Luke 4:28-29) drove Jesus out of town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. Of course, you know they were not successful in their attempt to assassinate him, but you understand why they wanted to, right? They looked at this man who was claiming to be God’s anointed prophet and he didn’t seem so special to them. How could he be (2 Cor. 4:4) the image of God? How could (Col. 2:9) the fullness of the Deity, the one true God Yahweh, live in bodily form?

Mark’s Gospel even tells us that after casting out demons and healing the sick, and empowering his twelve disciples to preach and exorcise demons, there were crowds of people who wanted to see and hear from Jesus. So many people that he and his disciples couldn’t even sit down (Mk. 3:20) to eat a meal. Jesus’ own family had had enough. They went to where he was staying (Mk. 3:21) to take charge of him, for they said: “He is out of his mind.” Why? Because, apparently, his own (Mk. 3:31 ) mother and brothers could not believe that their son, their brother, was behaving the way he was. Maybe, as hard as it is to believe, they forgot that he was the Son of God. Perhaps, more likely, they took issue with the way he was doing his ministry. Either way, they forgot what it really meant for Jesus to be the Son of God. So many saw Jesus through the veil of what they expected the Messiah to be and do, and to not be and to not do.

Of course, there were those who were totally blind to his righteousness. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who claimed that he was in cahoots with Satan. That claim was circular logic. They believed that only an evil, sort of spiritual double agent would be able to drive out demons so easily. So anytime Jesus drove out a demon, it was just further proof to their distorted way of thinking. Even when Jesus healed Malchus, the servant of the high priest, on Maundy Thursday evening—after Peter chopped off his ear—they refused to consider the fact that the ‘blasphemous’ claims he was making of being the Son of God might actually be true.

This kind of veiled view of Jesus continued in Paul’s day. There were even still blind men and women who were convinced that Jesus could not be the Christ he claimed to be.

But the problem Paul identifies in our text was not put to rest after his generation died out. Even today, there are many that look at Christ through the veil of his humanity. Even today, there are many who choose to be blind to Jesus as the light of the world because they love the deeds of darkness.

Today, there are many that need saving, but refuse to see Jesus as their Savior. He may be an important historical figure. He may be a wise or insightful teacher. He may be a sympathetic champion for love, peace, and hope. But he is not their Savior. Mostly because they don’t really believe they need a Savior. They’re not that lost. They’re not that wrong. They’re not that bad. They think they could maybe use a little coaching, a little encouragement, a little recalibrating, but they don’t need salvation, atonement, or redemption. They see Christ as merely an example. A blueprint. A good guy who lived a good life who might be a good pattern of how to approach things. They see Christ through the veil of works-righteousness.

There are others who are totally blind to Christ as the light of the world because they love the deeds of darkness. This is how John describes them. (Jn. 3:19-20) Light has come into the world, but people 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 their deeds will be exposed. As Paul puts it, the god of this age—pleasure, prestige, pride, a life of opulence and comfort—has blinded them to the fleeting nature of the things of this world and the gravity of their wickedness.

In this kind of culture, one where the best of those who are perishing see Jesus as only a teacher and the worst reject him outright so that they can live as they choose, it is easy for us to (2 Cor. 4:1) lose heart. To wonder if we’re wasting our time as a mission congregation. To fear that even a city of lights placed on a hill can do nothing to triumph over the darkness. To consider ulterior ways of trying to get everybody out there, in here, by whatever means it takes so that they might see the light of the glory of Christ. To concoct slick and sophisticated ways of promoting the Christian way of life—our morality and the subsequent blessings of righteous living—as a way of appealing to those who are living in darkness.

Paul rebukes this sanctified-sounding “ends justifies the means” mentality, plainly. (2 Cor. 4:1) Since through God’s mercy we have this ministry—this work of sharing Jesus with the world around us—we do not lose heart. We renounce secret and shameful ways. We reject deception and anything that might distort the Word of God, because it is not the Word that is the problem, it is the sinful hearts of people.

We ought to recognize that because we still have sinful hearts. There is still a war going on within each one of us. There is a part of us that grows frustrated when our attempts at work-righteousness fall flat on their face. When we, ourselves, live under the veil. You may not think of them in these terms—but that’s what they are. Whenever you do something good and then are punished or persecuted for it, and you think for a moment, why bother? If doing the right thing is going to get me treated so wrongly, why go through all the trouble? You are thinking this way because you are thinking you should be rewarded for your good deeds. This impulse to justify ourselves is why we struggle to tell the truth in difficult moments. We are constantly calculating the cost of honesty. If I say this, how will it go over? How will I be treated? How will things work out for me?

There are times when we have turned a blind eye to our own sinfulness too. How many moments have been totally blind to our own selfishness, anger, and pride? How many loved ones must point out the sinful log that is stuck in our eyes before we get the picture? Yet we choose denial over self-denial. We are determined to shift the blame instead of rightfully accepting it as our own grievous fault. We prefer to point all the reasons and circumstances that we think explain away our wickedness, our selfishness, and our rebellious ways, instead of acknowledging that righteousness that only happens under “ideal” circumstances falls far short of God’s standard of perfection.

In many ways, we find a kindred spirit on the Mount of Transfiguration in Peter. Consider what Peter was asking for when he asked Jesus to stay on that mountain indefinitely. To stay was to refuse the path of self-sacrifice that redemption demanded. To stay was to reserve this foretaste of heaven’s glory for but three of God’s own. To stay was to keep the Light for himself. To stay was to deny God’s mercy to a world full of perishing, blind souls.

And that is why Jesus flatly refused Peter’s suggestion. Because Jesus was committed to setting for the truth plainly to a world that settles for self-deception. Jesus was devoted to letting his Light shine, because that light was the life of this world. Because Jesus honored the power of God’s Word—even though it would lead him to the shame of the cross.

Our Christ had a clear view of what it would take to achieve our salvation. He renounced the secret and shameful shortcuts the devil presented to him in the Temptation in the wilderness. He refused the deceptive attempts at hyper-piety that were promoted by the Pharisees. He came for the weary and the wounded. He came to heal the sick—physically and spiritually. He came to give his life as a ransom for many who were perishing.

He came to be renounced by family, friends and his followers; reviled by strangers, and railed against by his enemies. He came to die a shameful death on the cross. And as he died, he committed his spirit into his Father’s hands and clung to a powerful Word from God. (Ps. 16:10) You will not abandon me to Sheol, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. Three days later we saw the power in those words. Despite most of his friends being too scared to even stop by and being dead—God did what he promised. Despite his enemies remembering his promise to rise from the dead and placing his tomb under Roman soldiers’ supervision, the grave could not contain the glory of God any longer. The living could not be found among the dead. (Lk. 24:7) The Son of Man had to be delivered over other hands of sinners, be crucified, and on the third day be raised again.

And no one should have been surprised. Because the entirety of the Scriptures have made two things clear to us. 1) This world is filled with darkness, and nowhere is the darkness greater than in the hearts of sinful humans. Many are muddling through life in this world. 2) God is powerful, merciful, and faithful—he is patiently and methodically working to let his light shine and overcome the darkness of our hearts, keeping all of his promises, that we might come to know and believe in his Son as our Savior.

This is the message he has given to us. And it does not need our secret sauce. It does not benefit from our shameful attempts at sweetening it. The truth is not improved upon by deception or distortion. The Light of the Gospel is not made more powerful by us grabbing the spotlight and proclaiming what Christ has done for or through us.

The light of the knowledge of God is enough to humble those who are desperate to prove themselves “good enough” for God. The face of Christ is enough to give them hope, that the God they could never be good enough for has done all things well, in their place.

The light of the knowledge of God is powerful enough to pierce the blindness that afflicts so many souls in our world. They pursue pleasure and satisfaction and joy in ways that cannot offer what they crave. They know from experience that earthly pleasures diminish over time. The things and experiences that bring us satisfaction and joy often crumble in our hands. But our innate desire for satisfaction and joy finds what it is looking for in our God. The one who has made satisfaction for our sins and has secured joy without end for us in heaven. The truth, the Word of God is our impressive heritage and our powerful hope. And not just ours, but the our hope for years and souls to come. Amen.