“The Light of Life”
Jesus Is the Light of the World - Advent 2024
Lanse Evangelical Free Church
December 24, 2024 :: John 8:12
“Advent” means “coming.” Christmas is coming in just a few hours. Jesus Christ has come and is coming again very soon.
This year for the Advent Season, we have been lighting candles to reflect on the beautiful breathktaking claim of Jesus when He said, “I am the light of the world.”
That’s in the Gospel According to John chapter 8, verse 12.
As a church family, we just recently completed a study of the entire Gospel of John over the last year and a half. What a glorious book! We’re going to be starting to study something new real soon, and we’d love to have you join us Sundays at 10:00 for the next thing. This coming Sunday, we have a baptism planned!
This year, when we got to John 8:12, we memorized it together. I have it up here on the screen behind me. Would you read it with me? Because this is big!
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
What an crazy thing to say! Is He out of His mind?! What an astonishing thing to say! Because He means this. Jesus sure has a big view of Himself, doesn’t He? This is no small claim.
Jesus doesn’t just say, “I sure am bright! I am such a light in the world.” Which even that could be arrogant and egotistical if some people said it.
But that’s not what He says. Jesus doesn’t just claim to be a bright light in the world. One of several.
He claims to be THE light of the world!
The “world” here is, “kosmos,” humanity united in sin and darkness. And Jesus says that He has slipped into the darkness of this kosmos, the darkness of the world, and turned on the lights and is, in fact, the light of that world Himself.
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Jesus has a way of making everything about Himself. And that might be because He was a narcissist. Or it might be because everything is actually about Him.
Which do you think it is?
Jesus says if you do not have Him, then you have darkness. But if you do have Him, then you have light. And more than just light, you have life!
Every morning, I get up before the sun does, and I put on my heavy coat and my reflective “high viz” vest, and my heated gloves, and my boots with cleats strapped to them, and I grab my flashlight. And I head out on my walk. We just came through darkest night of the year. If I don’t take my flashlight, then I often can be stumbling around on my morning hike. Maybe take a nose-dive on Viaduct Road, especially on the ice last week. I almost fell this morning.
I need a light, or I walk in darkness.
Jesus says that we if we follow Him in life, we will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.
What does He mean?
Well, it’s hard to capture, isn’t it? Light is such a perfect and powerful metaphor because of how many different things light can mean! The same is true about darkness, just in reverse.
Let’s start by thinking about darkness. What is darkness like?
Many of us who live in Lanse got a taste of the darkness last night when the power went out. Somebody ran clean through a telephone pole yesterday in the center of “town,” and they had to turn off our power so that they could replace the light pole.
Darkness in the winter in Pennsylvania. What could go wrong? Glad it wasn’t the day before when it was only 5 degrees out there.
Darkness means coldness.
Darkness symbolizes emptiness.
Darkness symbolizes danger and depression and despair.
[LIGHT FIRST CANDLE AGAIN.]
On the first Sunday of Advent, Curtis and Stephanie and their sweet three girls lit our first candle, and said that it was a candle of hope.
When you are dwelling in darkness, you can feel like there is no hope. Some of you are feeling like that right because of how your year has gone. Some of you are grieving because you’ve lost someone dear to you recently. Some of you are scared about the future. The future of your job, your health, your family, your country, your world. It all seems so dark. Do you feel the darkness closing in?
Hear this. The darkness will not win. The darkness will not last. Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, Isaiah prophesied of His coming, “The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned." (See Isaiah 9:2 and Matthew 4:16!)
And that was the coming of Jesus. Hope shines forth. Jesus is the Light of the World. He’s going to change everything. He’s the dawn of a bright new day. We say, “Where there’s life, there’s hope.” We could say, “Where there’s light, there’s hope.”
Another thing that darkness often symbolizes is evil itself. Sin. The Gospel of John also says, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world [Jesus], but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil" (See John 3:19).
Evil thrives in the darkness. And we find that the darkness is not just out there, but in here. You look inside yourself and you find darkness.
[LIGHT SECOND CANDLE AGAIN.]
But when Jesus looked inside of Himself, He didn’t find any darkness at all.
On the second Sunday of Advent, Casey & Emigh and Emmory lit our second candle, and said that it was a candle of purity.
Like the song we’re about to sing and Jenni put on the front of our bulletin, Jesus is the “Son of God, love's pure light.”
Jesus is perfectly pure, and He came to sacrifice Himself to make us pure, too. God's Word promises that, "[I]f we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." (See 1 John 1:7.) There is no darkness in Jesus, and, one day soon, there will be no darkness in those of us who follow Him.
Jesus is the Light of the World.
Can you imagine what it will be like to have no darkness inside of us? No evil darkness to threaten us from outside and no evil darkness to threaten from inside?! I can’t wait.
What else is darkness like?
Darkness is confusing. It makes you feel lost.
Which way did we come?
Which way are we pointed?
Which way are we supposed to go?
What’s in our way?
If you are completely in the dark, you stumble and wander and become lost.
[LIGHT THIRD CANDLE AGAIN.]
On the third Sunday of Advent, Jeff and Becky lit our third candle and called it a candle of guidance.
They read Isaiah 42:16 to us where God promised to send His Servant to take hold of His people and guide them to salvation. He said, “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.” (See Isaiah 42:16.)
Jesus is the Light of the World, and He came to show us which way to go.
The last couple of weeks, we’ve been learning about The Bright Star of Bethlehem. You know about the one in sky that led the Magi to bow before baby Jesus.
We’ve also learned that Jesus Himself was a Star. Not a star in the sky but a bright and shining king who will guide His people safely home.
The choir sang it tonight:
“For Jesus is now the star divine,
Brighter and brighter He will shine.
Beautiful Star of Bethlehem, shine on, shine on!”
(Adger M. Pace and R. Fisher Boyce, 1940)
How does that make you feel? Darkness can make us feel so depressed. How many of us struggle with being down this time of year because there’s not enough light? I didn’t used to understand why people went south in the winter, but now I do.
[LIGHT FOURTH CANDLE AGAIN.]
We need light!
This last Sunday, Holly, Natalie, and Jon lit our fourth candle and said that it was a candle of joy.
When you light a candle, there’s this little thrill of happiness. It lifts the heart. How much more will Jesus bring true and lasting joy!
What did Treiton read to us that the angels said to the shepherds?
“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” (See Luke 2:10-11.)
Jesus is the Light of the World.
And He’s going to bring Joy to the World!
When the wisemen saw the star marking the place where Jesus was, they were overjoyed. Overjoyed. I love that word! It’s like joy times 10,000! Overjoyed!
We could go on, you know?
Because light is such a perfect prism metaphor with an incredible amount of beautiful meanings to reflect and refract!
Light speaks of presence. Where there’s a light on, you know somebody’s home. Light speaks of power. Light speaks of knowledge. Darkness is ignorance. But we say, “Aha. The light has come on” when somebody understand something. We could go on and on. Because light is such a powerful picture of what God is like.
God is light!
And Jesus is God’s Son. “Eternally begotten of the Father, God of God, Light from Light, true God from true God.” (See the Nicene Creed, 381.)
But we’ll stop with this one tonight because it’s the one that Jesus emphasized in John 8:12.
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
[LIGHT THE CHRIST CANDLE.]
Darkness stands for death. Light stands for life.
And in fact, life comes from this light. Just like life on this planet is dependent on the light of the Sun, our eternal life comes from the Son of God.
Jesus is the Light of the World.
We actually talked about this last year on Christmas Eve. Last year, we looked at the opening sentences of the Gospel of John where John summarized why Jesus came. He said, chapter 1, verse 4. “In [Jesus] was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (Jn. 1:4-5, NIVO).
Jesus said, “Here I am. I am the light that you need to have life. All you have to do is believe in Me.”
And many people said, “No thanks. That’s too much to ask. I like the darkness better. I’m used it. I’m comfortable there. I don’t get this ‘light’ stuff. I’ll stick with the darkness.”
Don’t let that be you! Don’t stick with the despair, the sin, lostness, the emptiness, and fear. Don’t stick with the death. Don’t reject Jesus. Choose Him!
Those are the only two options, and the differences could not be more stark. Think about what Jesus is saying up there in John 8:12. Let me turn it around and say it the other way around.
Jesus could have said it this way, “Whoever rejects me will always walk in darkness and will have the darkness of death.”
But that doesn’t have to be you and me. Jesus came that first advent bring us light of life.
Here’s what it took for us to have that life. Do you know what it took? He had to take on our darkness. Jesus had to take on our sin. He absorbed it and took it to the Cross.
And on the Cross, it looked like the darkness won. The Light of the World was consumed by the darkness. The light went out of His eyes. When Jesus was dying, the sun stopped shining (Luke 23:45). A great darkness came over the land for three hours.
But the darkness did not win and will not win. Jesus is the Light of the World, and He came back to life!!!
Jesus has a way of making everything about Himself because everything is actually about Him. He actually is the Light of the World.
That’s not an empty claim. That’s not arrogance or egotism. It’s the glorious truth. Do you believe it?
The application here is obvious. Follow Him. Put your faith and trust in Jesus and live like this is true. Because it is!
We can have hope.
We can have purity.
We can have guidance.
We can have joy.
We can have power, knowledge, and beauty.
And we can have life.
Because Jesus is the light of the world. He promises that “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Follow Him!
Now and forever.
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