The Light Shines
Description
In "The Light Shines," Dr. Kurt Bjorklund explores John 1:1-14 to reveal how Jesus Christ is the true light who pierces through life's darkness and offers hope to everyone. Discover how turning from temporary solutions to the true light transforms not only your own life but empowers you to guide others out of darkness this Christmas season.
Summary and Application
Christmas lights are everywhere this time of year—twinkling on trees, lining rooftops, brightening windows. But have you ever wondered why lights have become so synonymous with Christmas? The answer goes far deeper than tradition or decoration. It points us to the very heart of the Christmas story: Jesus Christ, the light of the world.
The Light Available to Everyone
In John 1:1-5, we encounter one of the most profound declarations in all of Scripture: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
Kurt explains that this light "is available to anyone and to everyone." Just as the sun rises each morning for all people regardless of their status, background, or beliefs, the light of Christ is offered freely to all. John 1:9 reinforces this: "The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world."
This light doesn't just illuminate—it transforms. It guides us when we can't see the way forward, provides safety in dangerous terrain, and pierces through the darkest circumstances of our lives. And most remarkably, as 1 John 1:9 promises, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
When We Don't Recognize the Light
Despite the availability of this light, many of us struggle to see it or receive it. John 1:10-11 tells us: "He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him."
Kurt identifies three ways we respond to the light. First, we can insist we don't need it, believing our own way is sufficient. In our culture, he notes, "everything's nuanced. There is no light and dark." But Christmas reminds us that there truly is light and darkness, and distinguishing between them matters.
Second, we can rely on temporary lights—what Kurt calls "numbing our way out of darkness." We reach for substitutes: entertainment, relationships, achievements, even good things that we elevate to ultimate things. "When you take a good thing and you make it an ultimate thing," Kurt explains, that's idolatry. These temporary lights might work for a season, but like batteries in a flashlight, they eventually run out.
Third, and most importantly, we can turn to the true light. John 1:12-13 offers this promise: "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God. Children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God."
The Word Became Flesh
The turning point of the Christmas story comes in John 1:14: "And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
Kurt shares a powerful analogy from author Belle Tyndale, who references C.S. Lewis and Dorothy Sayers to explain the Incarnation. Just as Dorothy Sayers wrote herself into her own novels to help her struggling character Lord Wimsey, God wrote Himself into human history. "The pretty outrageous Christmas claim," Tyndale writes, "is that God kind of did this for real, that he saw humanity struggling in a thousand different ways. He decided that because they were struggling and hurting each other and ourselves, that he needed to write himself into the plot that he had created to love us up close and to save us."
This is why we call it the Incarnation—God became flesh and moved into our neighborhood. Because of this, Kurt explains, "we can say when we suffer, we don't suffer pointlessly because the very God of the universe suffered and died and went to a cross." We can know we're never alone because there is a light, and Jesus became that light.
You Are the Light
Jesus not only declared "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12), but He also told His followers in Matthew 5:16, "You are the light of the world." Having received the true light, we're now called to point others toward it.
This Christmas season, Kurt challenges us to take that seriously. "Maybe this season, [you] could take a risk and invite somebody to Christmas Eve and say, 'Would you come with me this year? Sit with me,' and introduce somebody to the true light." Or perhaps it's time for that conversation you've been putting off with a family member or friend about the hope that's available in Christ.
John 1:17 reminds us: "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." We don't have to work our way to the light or perfectly align ourselves through religious performance. Jesus brought both grace and truth—showing us the reality of our condition while offering abundant light for the way forward.
Questions for Reflection
Which temporary lights have you been relying on to navigate the darkness in your life, and what would it look like to turn fully toward the true light of Christ instead?
Who in your life needs to hear about the light of Christ this Christmas season, and what specific step can you take this week to share that light with them?
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C.S. Lewis
“Looking for God or heaven by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare's plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters, or Stratford as one of the places. Shakespeare, in one sense, is present at every moment in every play, but he is never present in the same way as Falstaff or Lady Macbeth. My point is that if God does exist, he is related to the universe more as an author is related to a play than as one object in the universe is related to another. If God created the universe, he created space-time, which is to the universe as the meter is to a poem or the key is to music. To look for him as one item within the framework which he himself invented is nonsensical."
Essay: The Seeing Eye - https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/reflections-january-2017/
Belle Tindall Article
Article: Why the quiet questions of Christmas still matter - https://www.seenandunseen.com/why-quiet-questions-christmas-still-matter
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Just before we jump into the teaching, I want to hit a few more announcements because we haven't had enough yet today. And actually these are exciting announcements. Not that what was announced wasn't exciting, but here's just something that happened recently. We've been working on this for a while and that is we just bought a new church building in Beaver Valley. So here's a picture of it and this is really fun.
We've had a group that has been meeting in that area for some time to form a launch group. And here's some of the inside pictures. And so we were able, with the giving that you've done over time, to be able to purchase this. And it's in beautiful shape. And that group now will transition from kind of where they've been into a launch group and into a campus.
And we're really excited about what that'll be. So this coming Thursday, December 12th, there's an open house. Even if you don't live that way, don't intend to be part of the long-term launch, if you want to see it, just be part of it. That'd be a great night to go. There will be some worship, some prayer as well. And then starting January 7th, on Wednesday nights through January, February, March, there will be a launch group gathering there. And our hope is that we'll launch on Easter Sunday with weekend services there in that space. And so that's just really fun. And if that isn't enough, we have had a group that's been meeting in the Mars-Gibsonia area.
And on January 8th, so Thursday night, January, February, March, we'll have a launch group meeting at the Treesdale Community Center. And our hope is that that group will coalesce. And there's some exciting things in that area too that we can't quite say a lot about yet because it isn't quite to the final stage. But I'm excited about what can be there as well. And our hope is that that too would turn from a launch group into a weekend service starting Easter 2026.
So a lot happening around here. And again thank you just for your faithfulness over time and prayers and inviting and giving that has put us in a place to be able to do some of these things. And with that I just want to remind you if this is your church home, it is the time of year where we do ask you—if this is your church—to pray about making a year-end gift. It's a party gift and if you were at "It's a Party" we talked about some of the opportunities and what we have done over the life of this church is receive gifts week in, week out and then ask for a one-time year-end gift from those who consider this their church home. That goes to physical projects at the campus you attend and then to some of the mission expansion of the church. And so that's what we ask you to do.
And the request is simple. Just pray about what God would have you do and do that between now and the end of the year. For some people it's a way to kind of hit their intended target for the year where maybe they didn't stay on track. For some, you've been blessed and you have the ability to do more. And so we just ask you to make that part of your prayers this time of year. And we know that God will use that in some great ways.
Introduction: Christmas and Lights
So with that, I want to transition and just start to talk about Christmas today. So what are some of the things that you notice about Christmas when you drive around or walk around this time of year? There are a host—obviously there are shopping, décor, there are decorations. But one of the things that is ubiquitous with Christmas is lights.
And the reason that they're ubiquitous is a mystery to some. But who hasn't had the experience of taking the lights out of the box after a year that they're there? You get them all ready, you plug them in and half the strand doesn't work. Has anybody had that experience? You had it this week.
Here are a few pictures of some lightings gone wrong. Here's a tree where they got that going and they missed it. Here's another one. Now they didn't miss anything, but their concept may have been off. They made a frowny face in their window and then here's a light up, wait for it. Oh.
So when you see lights, there's a sense in which you go, oh, people have decorated for Christmas and it's pretty and it's a tradition, but it actually goes back to something spiritual, goes back to Jesus Christ.
Jesus: The Light of the World
In John chapter 8, Jesus said this: "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." So Jesus' declaration is, I am the light of the world. And so Christians began generations ago lighting lights, lighting candles as a way to say there is a light that has come into the darkness.
And the motif of light in the Gospel of John isn't just Jesus making a one-off statement in John chapter 8. In John 1 that you heard read, Jesus is said to be again the light of the world. Here's how it begins:
"In the beginning was the Word. We believe the Word here stands for Jesus Christ, is Jesus Christ. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
And if you look in your Bible where it says "has not overcome it," there's a little letter, a footnote maybe. You have to click on it and go down to the bottom of your page or to wherever your device takes you. And it says "or understood it." And the reason that it uses both the word "understood" and "overcome" is because the Greek word that underlies our English text could be translated either way. And so a translator has to make a decision. And so what they do is they'll either say "overcome" or "understood." Has not overcome it, has not understood it. Talking about the light that the world has not, or the darkness cannot overcome it or understand it. And probably the word could either one be used here because the point of this is that the light that Christ brings into the world is greater than the darkness, and the darkness doesn't appreciate it or understand it.
Now, light brings some things into our lives. It guides us when we don't see where we're going. It helps us because it provides safety. And not only does it do that, but light also attracts attention. But here I think the idea is that it pierces the darkness.
Light Available to Everyone
And what we see in John chapter 1, verse 9 is that this light is available to anyone and to everyone. Here's what it says: "The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world." And in First John 1:9—so John 1:9 says it's coming to everyone—in First John 1:9, the word "light" isn't used. But here's what we're told: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." The light comes and helps us recognize our sin and helps us see the solution. And if we confess our sins, the text says he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
And so there is a sense in which this light is available to everyone. And here's what this could mean in some ways. And that is as the sun comes up, that light is available to anyone. Regardless of where they live, what their economic status is, what their religious background is, there is light that exists, and it is for everyone. And only the people who are locked up somewhere without windows are deprived of that light. And the light of God, the light of Jesus Christ, is absolutely available to everyone.
Experiencing Darkness
And yet many of us have the experience of darkness in our lives. We experience it sometimes with global events. We see war and famine and abuse. And then sometimes we see it more personally. Some of us are in a season of darkness right now where we feel hopeless. We feel a little bit of the loneliness of this time of year. While many people say it's the most wonderful time of the year, for us it's a lonely season, a hard season, or maybe it's our first season after a loss. And so we have this moment of saying, yes, I see the light, but it feels dark to me.
And yet the idea of the light is that the light provides attention and direction and safety for all of us.
A Personal Story of Light
I had an experience of this years ago. We were living in Michigan at the time, and I was pastoring a church there. And as we were living there, my wife's sister lived in Indianapolis. And so it was about four hours from where we lived, not too far from Ann Arbor, Michigan. And as Christmas came that year, our plan was to leave Christmas Eve after services and drive down to Indianapolis, wake up Christmas morning with our kids there at my sister-in-law's house, and experience Christmas with them.
And the way that the church had Christmas services at that time is we had a 5 o'clock and a 10 o'clock. Now, I don't know what we were thinking with a 5 and a 10. I mean, here we do it much better: 11, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9. But at that time, so I went to the 5 o'clock, went home, had a little dinner. Faith had come to that with her kids, and then went back to the 10. And she had the car packed so that when I got home at 11, 11:30, I could change quickly. We could get in the car and drive four hours to Indianapolis on Christmas Eve night.
Now, we had three kids at the time. I didn't say we were smart. We had three kids at the time and we had two who were toddlers and a fairly young newborn. Okay. And there was a little forecast for snow. And I was thinking, you know, I'm from Wisconsin originally, snow means nothing to me. And we didn't really have cell phones—how old I am—because you couldn't see like real-time data. What you'd do is you'd actually watch television and you would see the forecast and it didn't look like it was too bad. So we headed out on our journey from Michigan down to Indianapolis.
And the blizzard that hit was not the blizzard that they predicted—it was worse. Have you ever been driving in one of those times when you get on the road and you can't see where the road is, where the ditch is and where the road is, and the only lights you see of any other cars are cars that you assume are in the ditches because they don't look anywhere close? This was our experience. And did I mention we had three kids in the back and no cell phone? And so we're driving and we're just in this, like, where's the road? Do we turn back? What do we do? But there's no choice. You just have to keep going at this moment. And it felt desperate until all of a sudden I see this truck kind of come off a bridge—not off a bridge, but like from a bridge down onto the road.
And it was a plow and he had a light and he was clearing a little path on this road and I could get up behind. I had somebody ask me last night after I told this story, they said, "I thought when you said you saw the light that the plow was going to be coming at you and you're on the wrong side." No. And we made it okay. But that light all of a sudden became a beacon for us to say this is the way forward. This is where safety is. This is where we will find relief in the midst of this blizzard.
And the idea of John 1 and John 8 is that Jesus is the light of the world that is available to everyone. And when John 1:1 says that the Word was with God and was God and was from the beginning, it is reminding us that he is the light of life who's available to everyone.
Not Recognizing the Light
And then in John chapter 1, verse 10, we're told something about this light and how we interact with it. Here's what we're told. John 1:10: "He was in the world, and the world was made through him." And then it says this: "And the world did not recognize him."
So people didn't recognize the light. The Greek verb here that underlies our English text is a tense that implies they continually did not recognize it. So even though the light was there and the light was there and there was more light, they just continued not to recognize it.
Then verse 11 says this: "He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him." Now, clearly this is a reference to the Jewish people of the day, but it's probably a reference to people who are around Christian things of any day. And it's saying that there are people who just simply won't recognize the light. And even those who see it and recognize it for something say, "I'm not going to receive it." So even though there's a light ahead of me, I either don't recognize it as I need it, or I say I don't want it because I think I know a better direction.
Three Reactions to the Light
And here's what this means for you and me, and that is that we can have a couple different reactions to the light.
1. We Can Insist We Don't Need Light
One is we can insist that we don't need light. That's what it means not to receive it, not to recognize it. And the reason we don't sometimes is because we think we have a better way. We think our way, the way that we want to go about things is actually sufficient in this world. Or we say, could God actually be good and be offering a good path forward in my life? And we're suspicious. And so we say, no, I think I'll continue to go my own way.
In fact, I would suggest that if you watch movies, there has been a change in our culture over the last number of years. And here's what I mean by that. There have been movies that used to be made that often would have kind of good people and not so good people. And there was a side you were supposed to cheer for and a side that you were supposed to cheer against. So think about, like, Indiana Jones, right? I mean, Indiana Jones is the good guy, and then there's bad guys, and you kind of knew what it was.
But you know what's happened in a lot of movies today? The good guys or the good people are nuanced. They have good qualities and not so good qualities, and the bad people have bad qualities and good qualities. Now, in one sense, that makes a lot of sense. It might actually be more theologically accurate in some ways, because none of us are perfect and all good, and neither is everyone all bad. So in some ways I appreciate it. But here's the other thing that it's done. It's created a way of thinking in our culture that says everything's nuanced. There is no light and dark.
And what Christmas reminds us is that there is light and there is dark. And when we insist that everything's nuanced or everything's relative, or that there isn't a good way, a better way, God's way, and something else, then we find ourselves trapped in darkness.
2. We Can Utilize Temporary Lights
So we can insist that we don't need light. Secondly, what we can do is we can utilize temporary lights in our lives. And what I mean when I say this is when the text says they did not recognize him and they did not receive him, what that means is even though there was light available, sometimes what we do is we either don't recognize it or we don't receive it because what we're doing instead is we're saying, "I think I prefer this light."
Now, I know I used sun as an analogy just a few moments ago, but let me switch that analogy for a moment and say, there is no sun. What do you do? You use little lights. But what's the problem with little lights? Sooner or later you get tired of trying to see in the dark, even with a good light that's on batteries, and sooner or later the batteries wear out.
And here's what this is pointing to, and that is that we numb our way out of darkness as a way to deal with darkness with temporary lights. Sometimes we'll numb our way out of darkness with things that are detrimental to us. This is why some of us find ourselves maybe drinking too much, finding ourselves drawn to some kind of sexual experience that's outside the bounds of God's provision for us. Or we find ourselves in a place where maybe we just love sitting and watching something for endless hours. It's a way to numb the darkness out of us.
And sometimes it isn't things that are negative in our lives or even neutral in our lives. It can even be positive things that we say, "This is the thing that I need." And we use it as a substitute for the real light. In fact, the Bible, when it talks about this, talks about this like it's idolatry. And what idolatry is is not that you worship something that in a sense you say, "This thing is carved and made of something, and it's so false." It's when you take a good thing and you make it an ultimate thing. When you say, "This is the thing that I must have to have life joyfully."
And so what some of us will do is instead of going to the true light, we'll try to create a series of lights in our lives that are temporary and could be good things, but we make them ultimate things, and then they don't satisfy us. And the way that works is you might take a good thing like your health. You might take a good thing like a marriage or a family. You might take a good thing like a career or a job or serving people, and you might make it an ultimate thing and say, "This is the thing that has the most value in my life." And in doing so, what you're doing is you are saying, "This is what has ultimate value." And if you or I find ourselves doing that, we can basically run through our lives always moving from one light to another light to another light, and never really find our satisfaction in the true light.
3. We Can Turn to the True Light
And that leads us to another reaction to the light. We can either insist we don't need it, that we just live in the dark. We can kind of rely on temporary lights, numb ourselves through the darkness, or we can turn to the true light. This is in verses 12 and 13. It says, "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God. Children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God."
So he says, to whoever receives him, they become the children of God. It's available to anyone, to everyone. The light is there. But notice what it says in verse 13. It says that it's children not born of natural descent. What this means is you're not born into it. You don't become a person of the light simply because your parents were or you grew up around it. It means when it says in verse 13, "nor of a human decision," that you and I can't act our way into it. We don't just simply say, "Well, I'm going to become a person of the light." And then it says, "It's not a husband's will," meaning it's not another person's desire. It's not something that we can do for somebody else by saying, "We want you to get it."
And so we end up then asking the question, how do we get it? John 8 again, where Jesus says, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." What we can tend to think that means is that what we need to do is follow it. And so we just need to say, "This is everything about what I do."
But notice in John 1, he uses this analogy of being born a child. And he does say, "whoever accepts it," and here's what I want you to see. And that is to be aligned with the light is not a thing where we go, "I think I'll pick this light compared to all the other lights. And this is where I'm going to go." But it comes when we get so desperate, like I was that night on the highway where I say, "That's the only light that I even want to be remotely tied to." And when that happens, it becomes not this hard decision or battle to say, "I'm going to follow the light." It's like that is the light. That is what is true and right. That is what I need.
The Word Became Flesh
But there's something else here, and this is the part of John 1 that often gets quoted, especially at Christmas time, and that's in verse 14. It says, "And the Word became flesh"—so Christ became flesh—"and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
And so here the idea of grace and truth and the idea of Jesus, the Word becoming flesh, is that Jesus dwelt among us. Some versions will reference this and say that he "tabernacled among us," that Jesus tabernacled among us. And the idea here is that Jesus took on flesh in order to show the way forward.
C.S. Lewis and the Incarnation
A friend sent me an article from a woman who I'm not familiar with, named Belle Tyndale. And it's on a website called Seen and Unseen. And here's what she wrote. "C.S. Lewis, do you know who he is?" And she says, "Of course you do." And if you are not familiar, he wrote Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, some of these things. And here's what she said:
"Lewis is the acclaimed author who had all of us wishing that our wardrobes housed a snowy world inside of them. He's the mastermind who made us all long for two things: a friend like Mr. Tumnus and a piece of Turkish Delight that actually tasted as good as it looked, neither of which existed. But his fiction is not actually what I'm reaching for to help me right now. It's his nonfiction that I'm after.
In 1963, he wrote an essay entitled 'The Seeing Eye' as a response to the Russian politician Nikita Khrushchev, who famously declared that Gagarin flew into space but didn't see God there," which was an allusion to a Russian space mission where they went to space, and he said he went there and he didn't see God.
"And this is what C.S. Lewis wrote in response: 'Looking for God or heaven by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare's plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters, or Stratford as one of the places. Shakespeare, in one sense, is present at every moment in every play, but he is never present in the same way as Falstaff or Lady Macbeth. My point is that if God does exist, he is related to the universe more as an author is related to a play than as one object in the universe is related to another. If God created the universe, he created space-time, which is to the universe as the meter is to a poem or the key is to music. To look for him as one item within the framework which he himself invented is nonsensical.'
Then the author says, 'Dang, he's good, isn't he?' And then she continues, 'God, if he exists, is over all things and in all things and through all things.' Now, notice her language there. What does that sound like? John 1: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word was the one that created all things.'
So she says, 'God, if he exists, is over all things, in all things and through all things. It's hard to get our heads around. And that's exactly why Lewis's Shakespeare analogy is so wonderfully helpful. You can't find God in one place. He's in every place. He's not merely an object in the universe. He's the one that holds the whole thing together. Now, let's move a step further. Say Shakespeare wanted to let Lady Macbeth know that he's the author of her entire reality, that he created her and everything around her. How might he do that? How might he introduce himself to Lady Macbeth in a tangible way? Well, he'd have to write himself into the play.'"
Dorothy Sayers and Writing Yourself In
"And this is where I'd like to welcome to the stage Dorothy Sayers. Dorothy was a hugely influential murder mystery novelist who happened to also be a Christian. She wrote a series of novels and short stories all centered upon the fictitious character of Lord Peter Wimsey, a detective. About halfway through the series, the perpetually lonely Lord Wimsey meets and falls in love with a woman named Harriet Vane. Here's where it gets interesting. It's widely thought that Harriet Vane is an autobiographical character. As in, Dorothy wrote herself into her own novels. She created Lord Wimsey and was distressed by his loneliness and his failings, so she wrote herself in to help him out.
The pretty outrageous Christmas claim is that God kind of did this for real, that he saw humanity struggling in a thousand different ways. He decided that because they were struggling and hurting each other and ourselves, that he needed to write himself into the plot that he had created to love us up close and to save us. This is why we Christians call it the Incarnation—the belief that God became flesh and moved into our neighborhood. And in so doing, he bound together centuries worth of prophecies, predictions, expectations and hopes."
Do you see it? John 1:1-4 basically is the C.S. Lewis analogy. You don't always see God, but he is the true light and the darkness can't overcome it. But John 1:14, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us," is God saying, "I came so that you would know unmistakably where the light is."
Implications of the Incarnation
Here's some of the implications of this. Because God became incarnate, Christmas happened. We can say when we suffer, we don't suffer pointlessly because the very God of the universe suffered and died and went to a cross. We can say that the very God of the universe inserted himself into human history to address human need and therefore understand being compelled to address human need. And we could know that we're never alone because there is a light. And as desperate as I was on the highway that night, there was a light ahead that guided the way. And Jesus says, "By coming, I became that light."
Grace and Truth
Now notice one other thing here, and that is in John 1:14, he says this very clearly. "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father," and then was to say, "full of grace and truth."
Now why is that included here? Well, he actually tells us just a couple verses later, verse 17: "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." Why is that here? Why does he allude to Moses and the law? It seems like it's just coming from nowhere here. Do you know what I think he's doing? He is communicating this very simple fact that there's a law, which is what religion is built on, that says you perform, you do, you make everything happen. In other words, you have to get your life aligned to the light in some way, shape or form.
And what Jesus does is he comes and he brings grace and truth. In other words, it isn't that you try really hard to get to the light. It is, "I have told you the truth about yourself, the truth about the way forward, but I have loved you so much that I have provided an abundant light for your way forward."
You Are the Light of the World
Do you know Jesus uses light in another place? He uses it a few others, but one other place that's notable and that is in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, verse 16. Do you know what he says? He says, "You"—speaking to his disciples—"are the light of the world." So he says, "I'm the light of the world." And then he says, "You, my followers, are the light of the world." And you can't see this real clearly in English because our word "you" is either singular or plural, and you have to figure it out by the context, but in the original language, "you" is plural. He's saying, "You all together are the light of the world." If you are my follower, he says, "You are the light of the world."
So what does that mean? It means that to the degree that you turn toward the true light, he says, "Now I want you to invite others." So some of us, maybe this season, could take a risk and invite somebody to Christmas Eve and say, "Would you come with me this year? Sit with me," and introduce somebody to the true light. Maybe it's not about a service here. Maybe it's about a conversation that you've been intending to have with a family member, with a friend, with somebody to say, "Have you considered that there's a light? That the darkness, that the highway that seems like it's littered without hope has a hope?"
Because Jesus says, "You are the light." Not just, "I'm the light." He's the light. He's the true light. But he says, "You're going to point others to the true light, and in doing so, that is where you will see change."
Conclusion
So this year, maybe when you see the lights all around, instead of just saying, "Oh, that's pretty," you can say, "That's a reminder that the darkness will not overcome the light and that the true light has come." And you'll use it as a moment to thank God and to remind yourself that you, too, are called to be the light. If you're a follower of Jesus, let's pray together.
God, sometimes this world feels dark and hopeless. Remind us that you are the true light and draw us to yourself so that we don't see any other option other than to say, "You are worthy of being followed."
God, help us if we're in the place where we say, "I don't need a God or a Savior. I just need to keep finding my way forward," to recognize our sin and turn and throw ourselves on you.
God, help us not just to be the people who kind of numb the darkness away with temporary lights, but see them for what they are, even when they're good, and turn towards you. And we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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