TUESDAY 4th
John 8:12-30
NIV (v12) – ‘When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’
ESV (v12) – ‘Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’
We come today to the second ‘I am’ statement of Jesus. (see devotion July 31st) where Jesus says that ‘I am the light of the world.’
Back at the beginning of the gospel, as we are introduced to Jesus as the Word, we are told ‘In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.’(1:4-5) It continues in verse 9 to say ‘The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world . . .’ In our text today, Jesus identifies himself as being the light that was coming, now, it had come and he as that light was declaring ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’
This is an astounding declaration to make, for in making it, Jesus was stating that he was the ‘light of the world’, he was born in Bethlehem, born as a Jew, lived his entire life in Israel, less the period of time as a refugee in Egypt after his birth, and yet he was declaring himself as the ‘light of the world’, and as the light if we follow him, we will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. This corresponds with John’s statement in 1:4, ‘In him was life, and the life was the light of men.’ This means that Jesus is life and light and that in our believing him, we are receiving Jesus himself, his life and his light. In John 14 we learn that he is ‘the life’ and thank God he came into this world not just to Israel to impart his life into all who would believe, eternal and abundant life.
Life and light – we know that for anything to grow, to have life, light is essential, we know all about photosynthesis, where the light of the sun brings the process for life to happen, in the same way for us to have life we need the light of the Son, and as his light comes into our lives we have the abundant eternal life he grants.
I think in a general sense today we take light for granted, we live in the era of electricity and we can have all forms of light and we can actually overdo it – I don’t even want to remember how many times with our children growing up we have had to remind them to switch the light off, or comment that the house is more like Blackpool illuminations with all the lights left on (my parents had the same problem too) but when it comes to the one who himself is the light, we can never over do it, we need him to shine in and though our lives, we need him to come and to dispel the darkness which is so widespread in our generation, we need him as the light to lead us and to guide us as we navigate through this world, as strangers and pilgrims bound for an heavenly kingdom.
Over the last month or so, there has been a comet called Neowise visible in the Northern Hemisphere, one of the complaints that has been sounded is that owing to the light pollution, it has been difficult to see the comet, and the best opportunity is to go out into the countryside away from the light pollution to get a better view. The reverse is the state of the world today, too much dark pollution and we as believers and collectively as the Church need to shine in the midst of this darkness as representatives of the one who is the true light.
Back in the 1980’s Elaine and I were staying with one of her cousins in Mansfield, he was a pit manager and it was during the time of the long strikes. As a manager he had to go down into the pit and through the coal face every day to inspect it, to ensure its safety for when the miners returned to work. He invited me to go with him, this of course was a new experience for a farmer’s son, and I have to be honest I really didn’t know what to expect, but the deeper we went and then the further we crawled through the cutting face I began to understand what true darkness was really like and how important the little light we had was. Christian friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, Church, those of us who have come out of the darkness and into the light, let us never forget how truly dark the kingdom of darkness really is, it is under the control of the prince of darkness, and my how this world needs the light. We really are living in dark days where the principalities and powers would love to snuff out the light of the Christian gospel, we need to be courageous and willing to let our light, as Christ who is the light shines through us, shine before men so that they will glorify God. (Matthew 5:14-16)