Here we are at the mid-point of the Lenten season, on this the fourth Sunday of Lent. We continue to study the “I AM…” sayings of Jesus. So far we have heard Jesus declare, “I AM the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. I Am the Bread of Life. I Am the Good Shepherd.” In today’s gospel passages Jesus declares, “I AM the Light of the World.”
There are those in our world that try to tell us that, “Jesus never declared Himself to be God.” Yet, every time Jesus used the Greek phrase, “Ego, Ami” (which is literally translated into English as, “I Am, I Am”) to begin a sentence describing Himself, the Jewish religious authorities wanted to stone Jesus, or throw Jesus off a cliff, or find some way, any way, to kill Jesus!
Why do you think that was the case? It was because when Moses encountered God in the burning bush, (very probably the pre- incarnate Jesus) and Moses asks God what His name is, God responds by revealing that His name is Yahweh, meaning, “I AM Who I AM.” So each time Jesus referred to Himself as, “I Am, I AM”, the Jews understood Jesus to be saying “I AM God.” For a person to proclaim to be God was to commit the ultimate blasphemy, punishable by death.
The only person who would ever be allowed to call Himself God, was God Himself. Yet, here we find Jesus again using the term, “Ego, Ami”, “I AM, I AM”, the Light of the World!
Is it true? Is Jesus Christ the Light of the World? Is Jesus Christ God? Listen to these words from the Apostle John recorded at the very beginning of his Gospel. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word WAS God. All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”
Life! Ah, life can teach us many lessons, even in the games we played and our children play today. One of the most popular games when I was a child was Blind Man’s Bluff. This is the game where one child is blindfolded and then has to try to touch another child to make that child “it”. Things can get to be rather funny as the blindfolded child stumbles and gropes around trying to touch one of his or her friends. But you know, this game gives us a pretty accurate picture of the way most of us behave at one time or another; some folks, their entire lives.
Many people go through life as if they have a blindfold on, groping in the darkness, tripping and stumbling over obstacle after obstacle. Only in their case, it is not being done for fun and games, and worse, it affects their eternal destiny. Why does this happen? It happens because, admit it or not, ever since the fall of Adam and Eve every person born is born into spiritual blindness. Even worse than that, we not only are born spiritually blind, but we are also born into a world of darkness, without light! We need light in order to see. In absolute darkness, where this is no light, it does not matter how good our eyesight is. We will just not be able to see anything!
However, the reverse is also true. There can be plenty of light, but if the problem is with the eyes, we will still not be able to see, unless and until sight is restored to the blind eyes. So here we are, born into a dark world and with blinded eyes. We need the Light of Christ to first restore our eyesight, cure our blindness and provide the light to destroy the darkness.
It is extremely unfortunate that the world preferred and loved the darkness more than the Light of Jesus Christ when He first came to live among us. It is sadder still, that the world is the same today as it was then.
Like the man born blind, we all are born spiritually blind and grope around in the darkness, valuing the wrong things because we cannot see things as they truly are. Only the Light of Jesus Christ can restore our sight and allow us to see things as they really are.
The real tragedy is that many people are not even aware that they are blind and have rejected the Light. The Pharisees had condemned the blind man, saying that he was steeped in sin at birth and they were right! The thing is, so were they, and so were we! By rejecting Jesus, the Pharisees showed just how blind they were. They were unable to see their own sin and how much in need of salvation they were themselves. Rather than rejoicing at the healing taking place, instead of praising God that lives were being changed, the Pharisees were only concerned about the observance of their Sabbath Day Law, rather than the physical and spiritual well-being of others. Because of their spiritual blindness, they never realized that God had never intended the observance of the Sabbath to prevent an act of mercy and kindness toward another.
Jesus is the Light of the World. Jesus restores our sight and brings us into His light so that we can also become light. Jesus came into the world to give light and we are to spread that light. We are to spread His Gospel. However, we must understand that not only is the Gospel good news, it is also bad news. The Gospel of Christ is good news to those who accept Him. The Gospel of Christ is bad news to those who reject Him. When the Gospel of Christ is heard and accepted, it is life. When the Gospel of Christ is heard and rejected, it is death. We, who have had our spiritual sight restored and walk in the Light, are to walk a distinctive path. Our walk, our lifestyle is to be different from that of the world we live in. We are to live a life that astonishes the secular world.
As people of the Light, we are to be light. We are to take our light out into this dark world and let it shine. Many of us, however, would rather hide our light under a basket. Yet Jesus tells us that we are to let our light shine on those godless men and women in the world, so that they can see our good works of God that glorify His name. When we live in the Light of Jesus Christ, we are able to face the many, many challenges and temptations that continue to come at us in ordinary, everyday life. We Christians must use our lives as living testimonies to the power, mercy and grace of our Lord and Savior.
In Biblical times, whenever Jesus performed a miracle, the miracle would bring about many questions. Usually the questions provided the believer the opportunity to witness for Christ. The man born blind did not know how or why he had been healed, but he knew that his life had been miraculously changed forever and he was not the least bit afraid to tell the truth. He gave simple testimony about his experience, unburdened by an overabundance of theological questions and debate. Even though his witness was simple, he just told the Pharisees the basic facts about his healing and gave credit to the One who had performed the miraculous healing. The man was very convincing.
Just like that once-blind man, we do not need to have all of the answers in order to share Jesus with others. We simply need to tell people about how Jesus has changed our lives as we struggle to live in this fallen world. In our world “good” is not always rewarded as we think it should be, and “bad” is not always punished as we would like it to be. But Jesus has the power and enables us to deal with everything that life throws at us. Regardless of the reasons for our suffering, Jesus is able to heal us, both physically and spiritually.
We who admit to being blind are given sight. But those who insist that they have 20/20 vision without Jesus Christ are confirmed in their blindness. For spiritual sight comes only from an encounter with the Living Savior. In our world today, there are those who choose to live in the light and those who choose to remain in the darkness. The darkness hides reality from us and prevents us from seeing things clearly. It also hides the threats and dangers from us. But light illuminates our surroundings and allows us to see things as they really are. Jesus Christ, the Light of the World, has overcome the darkness, just as turning on a light in a dark room defeats and brings to an end the darkness in that room. By His death on the cross of Calvary’s hill, Jesus overcame, disarmed and defeated the powers of darkness and thus enabled us to turn away from the darkness, come into the light, and bring the light into this dark world.
The light of Christ shall never be overcome by darkness. Neither will those who walk in that light. We each have the choice to personally accept Jesus Christ, the Light of the World, and become light ourselves, or to reject Jesus Christ and remain in darkness. We who accept the light of the Savior, Jesus Christ, become children of the Light and will remain in His light forever. But those who reject the Light and choose the darkness are condemned to live in the darkness for all eternity. Jesus Christ, the Light of the World, desires everyone to come into His light and remain with Him forever.
Light or darkness? It’s your choice to make. No one can make it for you. It’s a choice that lasts forever. Choose wisely. Amen.