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2002
24th February (pm) - 'I am the Light of the World'
JOHN 9:1-34

The Jewish people really know how to celebrate. Did you know that they have three harvest festivals in the year? There is the Feast of Passover, which corresponds with our Easter, and at Passover, Jews traditionally celebrate the Exodus from Egypt. Of curse Christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ at Easter, and faith in Jesus Christ is likened to an exodus experience. Then there is Pentecost. Pentecost is celebrated fifty days after Passover, and Jews celebrate at Pentecost the giving of the Law to Moses at Mt. Sinai. Christians celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the Spirit's coming is akin to receiving the law of God, not written on stone tablets, but written on our hearts.

The third harvest celebration in the Jewish calender is the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot, which lasts for a week. It corresponds to our harvest time, as they both occur in October. But while the Jews celebrate for a week, we plan for weeks and celebrate for a day. During this festival, Jews remember how God provided for their ancestors needs in their wilderness wanderings, how God guided their journey across the wilderness by a pillar of light in the sky. They build temporary shelters, tents, to sleep in during the festival.

It is important that we have this understanding, because if we do not, then Jesus' claim to be the light of the world makes no sense at all, for it was at the Feast of Tabernacles that Jesus made this outrageous claim about himself. Jesus said: I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. (8:12)

And then to prove his claim, he goes and heals a man physically blind from birth, which really cheesed off the Pharisees, the religious people, the ones who knew their Bible's backwards, the guardians of God's truth. And along comes Jesus and says some things about himself, which has the implication of saying that he is God. The Pharisees had failed to see that the God who had provided light for their ancestors in their wilderness wanderings, was the same God who now walked among them in the person of Jesus Christ. And the irony for these religious people is that while they professed to know about God and to be the official guardians of his truth, they were in fact strangers of the living God. Strong religious credentials are not a guarantee of communion and fellowship with the living God.

There is much to commend in this story and I would encourage you to read it for yourselves. I want to pick up on two elements of this outrageous claim by Jesus Christ and the subsequent story of the healing of the man born blind. Two effects of the light coming into the world. Let me state them for you:

The light brings the shadow of judgement to those who will not come to the light The light brings salvation to those who are blind

Effect #1 The light brings the shadow of judgement to those who will not come to the light

We see this effect in the reaction of the Pharisees, the religious people in Jesus' day. Their rejection of Jesus brings judgement upon themselves - and these were the religious people, the ones who claimed they knew what the Word of God, the Bible taught. They claimed to see and to know the truth, but they still rejected Jesus. Their guilt remained, they remained blind. They had failed to see the work of God in their midst, and so they rejected the very presence of God in their midst. They stood proud in their knowledge of God's law, yet they had failed to truly put it into practice. All they saw was a vilated Sabbath and a threat to their spiritual authority. They refused to see the need of this man, a social outcast. They refused to let God work through their lives, his salvation to this man who was blind.

This claim of Jesus Christ is exclusive. We live in a world of spiritual darkness and only Jesus can bring light to this darkness. Have you ever been somewhere where there is no light, no street lights, no house lights? We don't really understand darkness in a world of electricity.

In 1996, I spent three months in Kenya. While there, myself and three others climbed Mt. Kenya, the second highest mountain in Africa. We knew darkness. We were over 10,000ft above sea level, sleeping in a tin hut in pitch black. It was spooky. We got up at 2:00am to start walking in order to be at the summit by sunrise. It was very strange walking in darkness. The only lights we had were the torches we carried. We had a guide. But we still walked in darkness. The light we mustered could not dispel the darkness. They were not true light. Then at about 16,000ft, at 7:00am in the morning the true light which gives light to the world appeared. The sun rose, the darkness disappeared. The sunlight gave light to our path, and showed us our destination.

Without Christ, we live in spiritual darkness, and only Christ, the true light, can light our way. John Calvin once wrote: none will ever present themselves to Christ to be enlightened save those who have known that this world is darkness and that they themselves are altogether blind. If we are ready to admit that reality and our need, then Christ stands ready to give the light of his salvation to all who will believe in him as Saviour and Lord.

Only Jesus, the light of the world, can give us the salvation and life we need. His claim to be the light of the world is an exclusive one. There is no other name by which people may know salvation and life in all its fulness. John Ortberg in his book Love Beyond Reason states the following about this healing: A man who had been blind from birth can see; and he realizes that the sight he will prize his whole life, the best thing he will ever lay his eyes on, is the One who healed him. (p46)

We can accept Jesus. We can reject Jesus. But we cannot ignore Jesus. He is still the light of the world. Are you going to admit your need and come to the light? Or are you going to let the shadow of future judgement have the last word on your life?