Sermon: The Light of the World
So as we get started this morning, think for minute about what it means to be “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” We typically use that phrase to refer to something bad happening, but think about it means literally. What does it mean to literally be in the wrong place at the wrong time? So my kids love to go to the pool in the summer. We’ve already been a few times this year; we were there yesterday, and every time we go, I can’t help but be reminded about this canon ball I did at the pool a couple years ago. It has become family folklore for us. It started as a normal day. The pool was not very crowded. The kids and I had just been hanging out in the kiddie area, until I noticed that there was no line to get on the diving board. And so as a dad who wants to impress his kids, I decided to show them how to do a canon ball — and they were excited to see this. They’re new to these things. So they sat up out of the pool to watch me, and I walked over to the deep end, nodded to the life guard. There were a few elderly ladies doggy paddling in the deep end, but other than that, nobody was there. It was amazing. I had the pool almost all to myself. So I stepped up on the diving board, took a couple skips, got a good spring, went way up, good tuck of the knees in my arms, and boom! — I crashed into the water. Now before I even came up out of the water, I could hear the lifeguard’s whistle. And then when I came up out of the water, I could still hear the whistle, and the whistle just kept going until I made it to the ladder and got out. It was the whistle of shame. Because apparently, the deep end of the pool was closed that afternoon because there was a class going on — a senior aquatics class. Oops! My canon ball had crashed into the middle of a senior aquatics class. I’d never before had so many old ladies mad at me. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And look, we’ve all been there before, in some way. [Right? Or we know what it means to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.] But what about this? Turn it around: what does it mean to be in the right place at the right time? Think about that. Now go a little deeper. What does it mean to be in the best of all possible places at the best of all possible times? For example: imagine you are stuck in darkness — you are dying in darkness — but then Jesus comes to you in that darkness and says to you, “I am the light of the world.” Imagine that. Because that’s what is happening in our passage today, in John Chapter 8. Jesus is saying two basic things to us here in John 8, verse 12. Jesus is saying THIS is who I am, and THIS is what it means to follow me — and it’s great that Jesus is saying this because we need to know those two things. And so for the sermon today, we’re just going to look closer here at John 8, verse 12, but to really understand this verse we’re going to have to turn to a few more places in the Gospel of John [the verses will be up here to try to help with that]. Here are two points of the sermon, really like two movements. 1) Who Jesus is 2) What it means to follow him #1. Who Jesus Is (verse 12a) Right away in verse 12 we know that the Gospel writer John is starting a new part of the story because he begins by saying, “Again Jesus spoke to them” — which means that Jesus is still speaking to the people like he was in Chapter 7, but this is a new conversation. We also know from the context that Jesus is in Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths (also called the Feast of Tabernacles) and Jesus has been teaching around the temple. In fact, verse 20 actually tells us his exact location. Jesus was teaching in “the treasury” of the temple. That’s where this new conversation in verses 12–19 takes place, and the whole thing was set off because of what Jesus says in verse 12. That’s the main verse in this passage. Jesus says there, very plainly, verse 12: I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. This is the second time in John’s Gospel that Jesus has made this kind of “I am” statement. Last week Pastor Joe showed us John 6 when Jesus said “I am the bread of life,” and here in John 8, verse 12 Jesus says: “I am the light of the world.” How Is Jesus Light? And in both of these statements Jesus is using a metaphor, like Joe talked about last week, but the thing with light is that it’s a very broad metaphor. And so what exactly does Jesus mean by it? In what way is Jesus light? Now, we should ask this question first because the theme of light is all over the place in the Bible (especially in the Old Testament) — but also because, already here in the Gospel of John, by the time we get to Chapter 8, Jesus has been called the “light” two different times — first in Chapter 1 at the very beginning of the Gospel, and then again in Chapter 3. |