Scriptures: John 8:12-20; 9:1-39 and 12:44-46
Structure:
- Introduction
- Jesus guides
- Jesus creates
- Jesus reveals
- Conclusion
Introduction:
Good morning everyone.
Today we continue our sermon series on the I am sayings of Jesus in the gospel of John. Jesus uses a number of I am statements to describe himself. These sayings tell us about Jesus’ being, his identity. What we notice is how closely Jesus identifies himself with God the Father.
Please turn with me to John chapter 8, verse 12, page 129 toward the back of your pew Bibles. This morning we hear how Jesus says: I am the light of the world. From John 8:12-20, we read…
12 Jesus spoke to the Pharisees again. “I am the light of the world,” he said. “Whoever follows me will have the light of life and will never walk in darkness.”
13 The Pharisees said to him, “Now you are testifying on your own behalf; what you say proves nothing.”
14 “No,” Jesus answered, “even though I do testify on my own behalf, what I say is true, because I know where I came from and where I am going. You do not know where I came from or where I am going. 15 You make judgments in a purely human way; I pass judgment on no one. 16 But if I were to do so, my judgment would be true, because I am not alone in this; the Father who sent me is with me. 17 It is written in your Law that when two witnesses agree, what they say is true. 18 I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me also testifies on my behalf.”
19 “Where is your father?” they asked him.
“You know neither me nor my Father,” Jesus answered. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”
20 Jesus said all this as he taught in the Temple, in the room where the offering boxes were placed. And no one arrested him, because his hour had not come.
May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.
There are many things we could say about light in relation to Jesus. This morning we will focus on just three things: As the light of the world Jesus guides, Jesus creates and Jesus reveals. First let us consider how Jesus guides.
Jesus guides:
A lighthouse guides ships to keep them off the rocks.
Traffic lights guide cars to prevent crashes.
Runway lights guide aeroplanes as they land.
A torch light guides your steps in the dark.
Ancient mariners guided their craft by the light of the stars.
Illuminated exit signs in a picture theatre guide you to the nearest exit.
The light of the sun (with the constant cycle of day and night) is our guide for measuring time.
And when one of the lights on the dashboard of your car starts flashing, that’s usually a sign to indicate something needs attention.
Light guides us.
In the context of John 8, Jesus is sitting in the temple in Jerusalem. More specifically he is in the Court of the Women, which got a great deal of foot traffic. It was the Feast of Tabernacles (also known as the Feast of Shelters).
A ‘tabernacle’ is a tent or temporary shelter such as was used by the Israelites when they journeyed through the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt. God commanded the people of Israel to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles as a way of remembering the nation’s deliverance from slavery.
One of the traditions associated with the festival of Tabernacles was the lighting of four giant lamps. These lamps burned through the night, illuminating the city. The lamps were a reminder to the people of how God had guided his people through the wilderness with a pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night.
By saying, “I am the light of the world”, during the festival of Tabernacles, Jesus was making an incredible claim. He was essentially saying, I am the physical representation of God’s presence with you on earth.
The motif of guidance is brought out more clearly when Jesus says: “Whoever follows me will have the light of life and will never walk in darkness.”
In other words, look to me and follow me to find freedom from the things that enslave you. I will be your security in the darkness. I will guide you through the wilderness to the Promised Land of God’s kingdom.
That was a huge claim to make in itself but Jesus takes it even further. Jesus says, I am the light of the world. Not just the light of Israel, but the light of the other nations of the world as well.
No wonder the Pharisees reacted against Jesus. To them Jesus was a tall poppy that just had to be cut down. So they said to Jesus:
“Now you are testifying on your own behalf; what you say proves nothing.”
The Pharisees are appealing to a technicality in the law of Moses which required that at least two witnesses needed to agree for their testimony to be substantiated. Basically the Pharisees were saying to Jesus, ‘We don’t believe you are the light of the world. Prove it.’
In actual fact Jesus’ claim to be the light of the world was evidenced based. The evidence included, for example, the testimony of John the Baptist, the wisdom of Jesus’ own teaching and the miracles that accompanied Jesus’ teaching, as well as Jesus’ alignment with the things predicted about the Messiah by the prophets of the Old Testament. Jesus’ claim to be light was even seen in the stars, at his birth, by wise men who travelled from the East with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. The proof was there for those who were willing to open their eyes to see it.
Interestingly, Jesus does not appeal to any of this evidence to support his claim. Instead he points to God the Father as his witness. From verse 17 Jesus says:
“It is written in your Law that when two witnesses agree, what they say is true. 18 I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me also testifies on my behalf.”
It is fitting the way Jesus testifies on his own behalf. You see, light is unique in that it bears witness to itself. Everything else requires light to be seen but light does not require illumination. Light is illumination. The light of the sun in the sky is self-evident. It is its own witness. [1]
God the Father also testifies on Jesus’ behalf. God does this by vindicating Jesus. That is by upholding Jesus’ words so they come true, by enabling Jesus to perform miracles that only God could do and, most significantly, by raising Jesus from the dead. Perhaps too, Jesus is referring to the day of judgement when God the Father will bear witness to Christ His Son.
In Tolkien’s book, The Fellowship of the Ring, Lady Galadriel gives Frodo a phial of starlight and says to the Hobbit, “a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out”. Frodo uses this light in the darkness of Mordor as he faces the giant spider.
The opposite of light is darkness. Darkness comes in many forms. For example, there is the darkness of confusion. The darkness of grief. The darkness of despair and depression. The darkness of anger and violence. The darkness of ignorance and fear as well as the darkness of deceit and evil. Not to mention the darkness of loneliness and alienation.
All these forms of darkness have one thing in common. They make us blind. They rob of us of our ability to see. And when we can’t see we lose our way.
What darkness are you facing at the moment? Jesus is the light when all other lights go out. He shows us the way through the darkness, both the darkness out there and the darkness inside of us.
Jesus guides and Jesus creates.
Jesus creates:
In many ways light is the foundation of life. Without sunlight there would be no life on planet earth. Light causes plants to grow which feeds the animals and us.
Earlier in the service we heard a reading from John chapter 9, where Jesus healed a man born blind. In verse 5 of John 9 Jesus says, While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
Then Jesus spat on the ground and made some mud with the spittle; he rubbed the mud on the man’s eyes and said, ‘Go and wash your face in the Pool of Siloam’. So the man went, washed his face, and came back seeing.
This is a miracle of creation.
You may remember that when God created the cosmos, the first thing he said was, ‘Let there be light.’ Later he created humankind out of mud. By calling himself the light of the world and healing the man’s blindness with mud, Jesus is making a clear connection with God at creation. It’s like Jesus is creating new eyes for the man, so he can see.
One curious detail in this miracle is that Jesus tells the man to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. Jesus gives the man something to do. He invites the man to participate in his own creation of sight.
Perhaps Jesus involves the man in this way to give him a choice in the matter. If the man doesn’t wish to see he doesn’t need to do as Jesus instructed.
Perhaps also we are meant to recognise the connection between faith and seeing. For the man to receive his sight he needed to trust and obey Jesus. That’s what faith is, trust which leads to obedience.
Yes, Jesus is the light of the world but we also have some light to bring. Our faith is the conduit of divine light. Through faith we participate in God’s creative action in the world.
If we were to read on, in John 9, we would see how the man who was healed was interrogated by the Pharisees. Ironically the Pharisees lacked the faith to see that God was at work in and through Jesus.
The man who received new sight must have been a pretty nuggetty character. He stood up to the establishment saying, I don’t know if he [Jesus] is a sinner or not. One thing I do know: I was blind and now I see.
To the Pharisees this man was an was inconvenient truth. He represented that second witness they had asked for in John 8. Rather than accept the evidence before them, the religious leaders cast the man out of the synagogue.
It was quite sad really. The man’s healing was not meant to aggravate the Pharisees or anyone else. It was actually an invitation to believe in Jesus. But the Pharisees refused the invitation.
Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus guides, Jesus creates and Jesus reveals.
Jesus reveals:
Plato was a Greek philosopher who lived around 400 years before Christ. One of his many gifts to humanity was the allegory of the cave.
In this allegory Plato asks us to imagine prisoners chained together in a cave. They cannot see out of the cave but are forced to look at the back wall.
Behind the prisoners (and out of sight) is a fire and between the fire and the prisoners are people carrying various objects. In the light of the fire these objects cast shadows on the back wall of the cave. The prisoners see the shadow puppets on the wall and think this is reality. They don’t know anything else.
I suppose in today’s terms it would be like someone whose entire perception of the world was formed through watching TV and playing video games.
One day one of the prisoners is set free. He makes his way out of the cave to broad daylight. Although it takes some time for his eyes to adjust to the brightness of the outside world, he eventually sees that the shadows on the cave wall were not reality at all. In fact, the outside world is far more beautiful and life giving than his miserable existence in the cave.
The free-man decides to go back to the cave to release the other prisoners but when he returns the prisoners kill him. They cannot believe the testimony of the free-man. They think leaving the cave will be harmful to them.
Contemporary movie makers have picked up on Plato’s allegory of the cave with films like The Truman Show, The Village and The Matrix. In each of these movies the main characters find their way out of the darkness of false belief into the light of reality. Light reveals the truth of their situation.
In some ways, Plato’s allegory of the cave fits with the story in John 9. People generally, at that time, held the false belief that blindness and other disabilities or calamities were a punishment from God for sin. But this belief was just a shadow puppet on the cave wall. It wasn’t real.
Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus is not the fire inside the cave. He is not putting on a shadowy puppet show. No. Jesus is the light of the world outside the cave. The light of Jesus reveals the true situation. The light of Jesus reveals the beauty of God’s kingdom.
The man who received his sight was like a prisoner set free from the cave. Sadly, the Pharisees were like the prisoners inside the cave who could not accept any other reality than the shadows on the wall.
From John 9, verse 28 we read…
The [Pharisees] insulted [the man who had received his sight] and said, “You are that fellow’s disciple; but we are Moses’ disciples. 29 We know that God spoke to Moses; as for that fellow [Jesus], however, we do not even know where he comes from!”
30 The man answered, “What a strange thing that is! You do not know where he comes from, but he cured me of my blindness! 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners; he does listen to people who respect him and do what he wants them to do. 32 Since the beginning of the world nobody has ever heard of anyone giving sight to a person born blind. 33 Unless this man came from God, he would not be able to do a thing.”
34 They answered, “You were born and brought up in sin—and you are trying to teach us?” And they expelled him from the synagogue.
35 When Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and asked him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
36 The man answered, “Tell me who he is, sir, so that I can believe in him!”
37 Jesus said to him, “You have already seen him, and he is the one who is talking with you now.”
38 “I believe, Lord!” the man said, and knelt down before Jesus.
39 Jesus said, “I came to this world to judge, so that the blind should see and those who see should become blind.”
When Jesus says, ‘I came to this world to judge’, he does not mean judge in the sense of pass a sentence in condemnation. Jesus is not wagging his finger pronouncing people guilty. He means judge in the sense of reveal the truth. As the light of the world Jesus reveals the contents of a person’s heart.
Jesus’ presence certainly revealed the truth of the situation in John 9. As it turned out the man who was born physically blind actually had faith and therefore the spiritual sight to see that Jesus is from God. While the Pharisees, who had physical sight, were actually spiritually blind. They did not have the faith to imagine any other reality than the shadows on the wall of their cave.
It may be tempting to look down on the Pharisees or to condemn them for their lack of faith. While many of them got it wrong about Jesus, and we cannot condone their behavior, we need to remember they were like prisoners chained in a cave with only shadows to look at.
We also do well to remember that each of us has a little bit of Pharisee in us. Hopefully we are more disciple than Pharisee but, ultimately, we are all limited in our understanding. We don’t know what we don’t know. We tend to accept the reality we are presented with.
Conclusion:
In John chapter 12 Jesus said to the people in a loud voice…
“Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in him who sent me. 45 Whoever sees me sees also him who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness.
Jesus was sent by God and therefore Jesus reveals God. Jesus shows us what it means to be truly human. To be human is to be made in the image of God. By shining a light on what the image of God looks like, Jesus reveals God.
If the world we live in (and the reality we accept) is like a cave, then we are all (at some point at least) like prisoners accepting the shadow puppets as real. The good news is, the cave of this world is not all there is. Outside the cave is the wide open expanse and breath taking beauty of God’s eternal kingdom.
Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus enters the cave not to condemn us but rather to invite us out, into the light. Not the man-made light of the fire in the cave. But the divine light of God’s kingdom, outside the narrow cave of our perception.
Our part is to trust Jesus, to follow him as we make our exodus out of the cave. Ultimately we pass judgement on ourselves, by the way we respond to Jesus. If we follow Jesus in trust, we are saved. But if we reject Jesus in disbelief and cling instead to our chains and shadows, we condemn ourselves.
Let us pray…
Lord Jesus Christ. You are the light of the world. You guide, you create and you reveal. Shine your light on our way. Set us free from blind unbelief. Guide us in the way of truth. Lead us out of our narrow perception into the light of God’s spacious kingdom. Give us courage and faith to follow you, even though we have never seen and cannot imagine what God has prepared for those who love him. We commit ourselves to you Lord Jesus, in trust. Amen.
Questions for discussion or reflection:
What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
- Why do you think Jesus waited for the festival of Tabernacles before saying, ‘I am the light of the world.’? What meaning (or significance) did the festival of Tabernacles lend to Jesus’ words in John 8:12?
- What evidence (or witnesses) do we have to substantiate Jesus’ claim to be the light of the world?
- Can you think of a time in your own life when Jesus guided you through a dark place? What happened? How did Jesus shed light on your way?
- Why did Jesus tell the man (in John 9:7) to go and wash in the pool of Siloam? What is the relationship between faith and seeing Jesus?
- In what ways does Plato’s allegory of the cave connect with John 9? What (and/or who) does Jesus reveal?
[1] Refer Leon Morris, NICT John, page 390.
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