We hope that you enjoy this teaching from Christ Church.
This material is copyrighted and no unauthorized duplication, redistribution, or any other use of any part is permitted without prior consent from Christ Church.
Please consider donating to this work in the San Francisco Bay Area online at ChristChurchEastBay.org.
Good morning.
Good morning. I'm Megan Doxon, and I am part of the Thursday evening North Berkeley community group.
Today's scripture reading is from the Gospel according to John 8, verse 12, and chapter 9, verses 1 to 17 and 24 to 41, as printed in your liturgy.
When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said,
I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him,
Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?
Neither this man nor his parents sinned, said Jesus, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work.
While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes.
Go, he told him, wash in the pool of Siloam.
This word means sent.
So the man went and washed and came home seeing.
His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked,
Isn't this the same man who used to sit and beg?
Some claimed that he was. Others said, no, he only looks like him.
But he himself insisted, I am the man.
How then were your eyes opened, they asked.
He replied, the man they called Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes.
He told me to go to Siloam and wash.
So I went and washed, and then I could see.
Where is this man, they asked him.
I don't know, he said.
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind.
Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath.
Therefore, the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight.
He put mud on my eyes, the man replied, and I washed, and now I see.
Some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.
But others asked, how can a sinner perform such signs?
So they were divided.
Then they turned again to the blind man.
What have you to say about him?
It was your eyes he opened.
The man replied, he is a prophet.
A second time, they summoned the man who had been blind.
Give glory to God by telling the truth, they said.
We know this man is a sinner.
He replied, whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know.
One thing I do know.
I was blind, but now I see.
Then they asked him, what did he do to you?
How did he open your eyes?
He answered, I have told you already, and you did not listen.
Why do you want to hear it again?
Do you want to become his disciples too?
Then they hurled insults at him and said, you are this fellow's disciple.
We are disciples of Moses.
We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't even know where he comes from.
The man answered, now that is remarkable.
You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes.
We know that God does not listen to sinners.
He listens to the godly person who does his will.
Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind.
If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.
To this they replied, you were steeped in sin at birth.
How dare you lecture us?
And they threw him out.
Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, do you believe in the son of man?
Who is he, sir?
The man asked.
Tell me so that I may believe in him.
Jesus said, you have now seen him.
In fact, he is the one speaking with you.
Then the man said, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him.
Jesus said, for judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see, and those who see will become blind.
Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, what?
Are we blind too?
Jesus said, if you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin.
But now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
This is the gospel of the Lord.
Thank you for that reading, Megan.
Good morning, everyone.
My name is Andrew, one of the pastors here at Christ Church.
Will you join me in prayer as we listen to what God has to say from his word?
Lord, we come before you wanting to encounter the light of the world.
And we give thanks to you that that is who you are.
You are indeed the light of the whole world.
And we pray for that light to shine on our world in moments like these.
And every day, this dark and broken world that so desperately needs the light of Christ.
So we pray for that light, and we pray that it would start here with us.
Use the preaching of your word to bring glory to yourself and light to the nations, we pray.
In Jesus' strong name.
Amen.
So we are continuing our series in the Gospel of John.
And the good news about Jesus that John especially wants to communicate is that Jesus is God himself.
Come to be with us in the flesh.
He's Yahweh among us, the great I am God among us.
Come to be everything that our darkened, sin-stained world needed but never deserved.
And that's why the Gospel of John famously has these I am statements.
Two weeks ago, we talked about Jesus saying, I am, what, the bread of life?
Last week, Jonathan preached about Jesus saying, before Abraham was, I am.
Well, today on Transfiguration Sunday, this day that we remember Jesus' brilliance and the brightness that emanated from him in the presence of his Father,
we are looking at the next I am statement where he says, I am the light of the world.
I am the light of the world.
Now, to understand what this means and why it matters, I want to invite us to imagine a world without light.
Try to imagine that, a world without light.
If you think about it, it would be both literally and metaphorically a pretty dark place, right?
I mean, there couldn't be life as we know it.
And even if there was life somehow, imagine how you would know and understand anything without light.
It wouldn't be by sight, right?
You'd have to be like, oh, this is a rock because it tastes like a rock.
Or it smells like a rock.
It sounds like a rock.
But you couldn't actually say that this is a rock because I see that it is a rock.
And it's bizarre to think about, right?
A world without light.
Light, no life, no sight, none of that without light.
So here Jesus is.
He's saying, I am the light of the world.
He's saying, in me is abundant life.
And it's only in my light that anyone can see rightly and truthfully.
And man, that's a pretty radical claim, right?
It's a pretty radical claim.
Last week, we heard about how the Jewish people wanted to stone him for invoking the divine name, I am who I am.
But this week, he's saying something pretty radical, too.
That he is the light of the world, the very source of life.
And the only light by which we can see truthfully, truly, and rightly.
Or in other words, what he's saying in no man's words is that without me, even if you think you're alive, you're actually dead.
Without me, even if you think that you can see just fine, you're actually blind and in the dark.
And this is the provocative, even offensive claim that we are confronted with today from John's gospel.
I am the light of the world.
It's a challenge.
A challenge to all the other gods, all the other sources of light that we might be tempted to trust in and hope in.
See, with these I am statements, what John's gospel is trying to accomplish, what John is trying to do is he's trying to lift up Jesus as a superior God, a superior deity.
So far superior to all the other gods of all the other nations.
So when Jesus says, I am the light of the world, John is making explicit that Jesus is not just the I am, Yahweh.
He's making explicit that Jesus is a better God than Ra of Egypt, right?
That God that Yahweh conquered when he sent the plague of darkness upon Egypt and delivered his people out of slavery.
Or in the Greek world, John was saying, Jesus, when he says, I am the light of the world, he's superior to Apollo, right?
The son of Zeus, the God of light and sun.
See, the message of John's gospel is that Jesus is God among us and he is not just the true God, but he's better.
He's better than any other God.
And I think this is very instructive for us, especially for those of us investigating Christianity.
You know, I think sometimes with our rationalistic, you know, modernistic mindsets, we can get stuck on the question, is Jesus true?
And this is an important question that I hope we all wrestle with.
I hope we all check the evidence.
I hope we all try to be as objective as possible and examine all these claims.
But the beauty of the good news about Jesus is not only has God given himself objectively to us to examine as credible and true,
but he's also subjectively compelling.
He's also subjectively compelling.
I want you to imagine if Greek mythology were true, right?
Imagine if that were true.
It wouldn't be satisfying, right?
Would you really want a God like Zeus?
Would you really want a God like Apollo or Hermes, right?
Or Aphrodite?
But the good news of Jesus is that he's not only objectively true, but he is also subjectively compelling and satisfying better than any other option.
So for those of us who are investigating Christianity here today, even those of us who might just struggle with consistent doubt and skepticism,
maybe you're in a season of deconstruction, we're super glad you're here.
And what I want to propose to you is that, yes, keep grappling with that question, is Jesus true?
Is this true?
But I also want to challenge you to grapple with the question, is this better?
Is this more beautiful, more compelling than any other alternative I might place my faith in and give my life to?
And I think that if we dare to ask this question, is Jesus better?
I wonder if we might be pleasantly surprised at the way that our Heavenly Father draws us to himself,
the way his Spirit persuades us about who Jesus is objectively and subjectively,
as the one who truly is better.
Now, one way we might consider if Jesus is better is by asking, does he give us a better story?
Does he make better sense of the world and reality around us?
And I think Jesus is getting at this when he says, I am the light of the world.
I think he's wanting to speak to that question, is he better?
Does he give us a better story?
You know how a lot of people love to quote Dr. King, right?
Dr. King said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
People love that, right?
Religious people love that.
Irreligious people love that.
Agnostics, atheists, we all love that story.
We all want to believe in that story, right?
That ends in injustice and goodness and light triumphing.
But when Jesus says, I am the light of the world, what he's saying is that the story of universal history ending in justice,
it's only possible because he says, I am the light of the world.
See, when Jesus says, I am the light of the world, he's retelling the story of the universe.
We're taking all the way back to the beginning of history.
Page one of your Pew Bibles, Genesis chapter one, verse one.
In the beginning, God created what?
The heavens and the earth.
And then what does it say in the very next verse?
Verse two.
Now the earth was formless and empty.
Darkness.
Darkness was over the surface of the deep.
And I want you to think about that for a second.
God, the triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit, has existed from all eternity in his own unapproachable light, right?
But when he decided to create, when he decided to bring into existence something other than himself,
that was the moment when darkness, formlessness, emptiness, and the potential for chaos and evil came to be,
when God made something other than himself, something that was not God.
It seems a little precarious, right?
Yet from the beginning, this God, who is the inspiration of light itself as we know it,
he was not at all threatened.
He was not at all threatened by the darkness of what he created.
His spirit from the beginning was hovering over the deep, dark waters, giving order to it, conquering it,
giving it purpose and meaning and beauty.
And with a simple word, God put darkness in its place, right?
And God said, let there be light.
And this light was the life of mankind, the light that dispelled the darkness.
It brought the beginnings of order and form and life and vitality to this world.
And this is how the beautiful story of creation began.
In the beginning, God made the world and said, let there be light.
And we were meant to live in creation by his light.
And to know and relate to this world in his pure and powerful light that conquered the initial darkness.
But see, what the fall of history is, the fall of creation,
is when the crown of God's creation, humanity, us,
made in God's image, dependent upon God's light for knowledge and life.
The fall was when we chose to walk in darkness outside of God's light.
The fall was the result of us reintroducing and actualizing the possibilities of emptiness and chaos back into creation.
And what was the result?
The result, as Apostle Paul says in his letter to the Romans,
was that our sinful hearts were darkened because we exchanged the truth about God for a lie.
And we even began to suppress the truth about God.
And see, that's the big predicament that we're in.
That's exactly why we need the divine light once again.
So you see, this story that Jesus is telling,
this story that he's inserting himself into when he says,
I am the light of the world,
he's saying that though you rejected the initial light of creation that I gave to this world,
though you let darkness back in,
I'm entering into this dark world to shine again the light of new creation.
I'm shining the light of new creation, he says.
He's saying, I've come to bring new life and to help you see rightly again.
To rescue you, as Paul says, from the dominion of darkness
and to bring you into the kingdom of the sun, the kingdom of light.
He's saying, I've come to get you to the happy ending of the story.
A story that begins and ends with a triumph of divine light.
John writes about this in the very last chapter of the Bible, Revelation chapter 22.
He writes of a city with no more tears, no more darkness, no more night,
and in no need of a lamp or even the sun,
for it says the Lord God will give it its light and he'll reign forever.
History ends with God's people who once chose and walked in darkness,
somehow still dwelling with him at the end in unapproachable light.
And that's the good news that Jesus came to bring as the light of the world.
And John and Jesus, they both want us to end up enjoying that happy ending to the story
and the final defeat of darkness.
But the question is, will we walk by faith in his light?
Will we walk by faith in his light into his abundant life?
You know, the context in which Jesus says this statement,
I am the light of the world,
what's going on here in the Gospel of John is something called the Feast of Tabernacles,
the Festival of Tabernacles.
And what that was was a celebration of how God provided for his people
as they wandered out of Egypt in the wilderness.
And what they would do, what they would do during the Feast of Tabernacles
is they would camp out.
They would camp out for a whole week in booths
and just remember how God took care of them
as they were tent dwellers all throughout the wilderness.
And then at the temple, four huge lamps would be lit up at the temple court
and people would dance and sing and hold burning torches
and they would remember the light that led them out of Egypt into the Promised Land.
They would remember the pillar of fire that led them through the wilderness by night.
And so the point Jesus is making here by saying,
I am the light of the world,
the point he's making as he's about to give sight to this man born blind
and as he's about to confront the Pharisees
is that we are all in the dark.
We are all in the dark.
We are all in the wilderness.
We are all blinded by sin.
And it's only through him, the light of the world,
that we can enter into life and light and sight.
So I want to look at this story now with the next half of what I got to say.
I want to look at how Jesus makes this point
about how we're all in darkness,
how we're all blind,
how we are all in the wilderness.
I want to see how Jesus,
he really executes a real life living parable here
as he heals this man born blind.
And I love how it begins.
Look with me at how it begins.
If you remember from last week,
Jesus was just about to get stoned at the temple
because he had invoked the divine name
and claimed it for himself.
And you might expect that the very next thing that he was going to do
was go find some security,
go find a place to hide.
But here in chapter 9, verse 1,
what does it say?
As he went along,
he saw a man blind from birth.
He sees a man blind from birth.
I love that.
Remember, he is the God of Abraham.
He's the God of Hagar.
He's the God who sees.
And he sees rightly,
and he sees compassionately.
And seeing rightly and compassionately,
he saw what no one else saw.
Imagine the whole world probably blind to this blind man,
this man blind from birth.
Imagine a whole world so used to seeing him beg,
so used to his plight,
so used to his suffering,
that they could have never even imagined a different life for him.
I think about it.
How did everyone know that this man was blind from birth?
They must have seen him and have been familiar with him
and his story for years, maybe decades.
They all, including Jesus' disciples,
simply got used to it.
And as we see in the story,
many of these people,
they couldn't even believe
that he was the same guy
after his eyes were opened, right?
They didn't have eyes to see.
But when all of Jerusalem,
all these pious worshipers,
passed by him and saw his suffering,
and yet really didn't see him at all,
Jesus saw him.
Because Jesus saw a man
that he wanted to display the works of God in.
And because Jesus saw him,
his life was changed forever.
His life was changed forever.
Now again, the disciples,
they saw him,
but they didn't really see him, right,
with the proper lighting.
Really, they didn't see him
as anything other than an occasion
to have an intriguing theological discussion,
a theological debate.
They don't ask,
Rabbi, what amazing thing
are you about to do for this guy?
What amazing thing are you going to do
to bring glory to your Father in heaven?
In verse 2, they ask,
Rabbi, who sinned?
This man or his parents,
that he was born blind?
Now they must have thought
they were being so clever.
They must have thought
they were being so theologically astute,
because everyone knows
that suffering is a result of sin, right?
That was their premise.
And yet this man was born
suffering from blindness.
So like, did he do something?
Maybe like in the womb?
Or was his suffering linked
to someone else's sin?
Maybe like his parents.
In essence, what they were asking was,
is this man suffering
as a perpetrator of sin
or as a victim of sin?
Who's at fault?
Who's to blame?
But Jesus, being the light of the world,
seeing truly,
seeing past this false,
foolish dichotomy
that seeks to blame people
and pin people in darkness,
he says in verse 3,
neither.
Neither.
Neither did this man
nor his parents sin,
but this happened
so that the works of God
might be displayed in him.
Jesus sheds further light
on the story of this blind man.
A far more nuanced light
than simply attributing his blindness
to his own sin
or someone else's sin,
Jesus says,
neither.
Because he knows the truth.
That the relationship
between sin and suffering
is way more complex, right?
It's way more complex than this.
As scripture teaches,
like in the book of Job,
or as Jesus taught elsewhere
in Luke chapter 13
about the 18 people
who got crushed by a tower,
and he talked about
whether they were more guilty
than the survivors.
No, they weren't.
Scripture teaches,
Jesus confirms,
that while all suffering
is due to sin in general,
not every instance of suffering
is directly related
and simply due
to a particular instance of sin,
like some tit-for-tat
karmic formula.
And honestly,
this exchange warrants
a sermon of its own,
and I was tempted
to just preach on this,
but I decided not to.
If you want,
you can look at a sermon
we preached last year,
Luke chapter 13,
where he talks about
the tower that fell
on those 18 people.
Or you could read
Tim Keller's book,
Walking with God
Through Pain and Suffering.
It's one of my favorites.
But in the interest of time
and wanting to get,
wanting to keep the big picture
of what's going on here,
I love what the Oxford
New Testament scholar
N.T. Wright,
he says about Jesus' response
to this blind man
and his disciples'
simplistic question.
N.T. Wright says,
Jesus didn't waste time
describing the chaos,
analyzing it,
or discussing
whose fault it was.
Instead,
he created light.
Instead,
he just created light.
Jesus' answer
was basically
that you guys
are missing the point,
trying to figure out
who is to blame.
The main point
is that I am
the light of the world.
And every instance
of suffering
is not an occasion
to discern
where the darkness
came from
and who's to blame.
Rather,
every instance
of suffering
is an occasion
for me to display
the works of God.
And maybe this is a word
for some of us today
who find ourselves
in a season of suffering.
Maybe some of us
feel guilty,
ashamed of ourselves
for the suffering
we believe
that we're responsible for
because of past mistakes
and flaws
and failures.
Or maybe some of us
feel like victims,
angry at others,
our parents,
our family,
our spouse,
our community,
maybe even at God
for the suffering
we believe
we've been unfairly
afflicted with.
And you know,
maybe you're not wrong.
Maybe we are responsible
for our suffering
or maybe others
are responsible
for our suffering.
But what if?
Imagine what kind of people,
what kind of community
we would be.
What if we saw ourselves
not simply as guilty
or as victims,
but more importantly
as people
on whom God
wants to shine
his transformative
life-giving light.
How might that bring
the transcendent healing
and reconciliation
that we
and this whole world
need?
This is what happened
to the man
blind from birth
after his encounter
with Jesus.
He didn't need
an answer to why
he was blind
in the first place.
He didn't even need
a detailed
rational explanation
for how exactly
he came to see
all of a sudden
for the first time
in his life.
All of a sudden
his life became
a story
with Jesus
at the center
as his life
transforming Savior,
as his life
transforming light.
All of a sudden
his whole life
became about
what Jesus
had done
for him.
When his neighbors
and the Pharisees
all continued
to ask him
what happened
and how he gained
his sight,
all he could say
was that this man
named Jesus
did it.
When the Pharisees
pushed and pushed
to get him
to explain
how someone
who supposedly
broke the Sabbath
by making mud
on the day
he was supposed
to rest,
how he could
heal him like that,
all this man
could say
in verse 25
was whether he's
a sinner or not,
I don't know.
one thing
I do know.
I was blind
but now I see.
That's all
he cared to know.
That's all
he had to know.
I don't know
how it worked,
why he spit
on the ground
and made mud
and put that
on my face.
I don't know
why he told me
to go to this
pool, Siloam.
And by the way,
most commentators
don't really know either.
I don't know.
But what I know
is that
I was blind
and now I see.
This was his truth.
This was his truth
and this is what
he was sticking to
and nothing else
mattered.
For this man
who had only
ever known darkness,
Jesus had become
his light,
the light of the world.
And as it says
in verse 38,
he placed all his faith
in Jesus
and he fell down
and he worshipped him.
And again,
this is the real life
parable,
the real life picture
Jesus used
to explain
what it meant
that he is
the light of the world.
I mean,
just try to explain,
try to imagine,
try to think through
the details
of this story.
This guy has been
in the dark
his whole life, right?
He doesn't have a clue
what light even is.
The word color
or red
or green
or purple,
it means nothing
to him.
And he's going
about his daily routine
just trying to
helplessly beg
for charity.
And then
from some direction,
maybe he hears
the judgmental,
dehumanizing questions
of the disciples
about,
hey Jesus,
who sinned?
Who sinned
to make that guy
blind?
No doubt
he's probably wondered
the same thing,
right?
Why me, God?
What did I do?
Or why did you let
this happen to me?
And then all of a sudden
he hears this rabbi
give a crazy surprising answer
that neither he
nor his parents' sin
led to his blindness,
but that the work
of God
was about to be
displayed somehow
and whatever that meant.
And all of a sudden
he hears
right?
He hears someone
spit on the ground.
He feels some mud
on his eyes
and he's given
some strange
and maybe even
inconvenient instructions
to go wash
in this certain pool
in the city.
And so just imagine
this blind guy,
he's still blind
with mud on his face.
He's groping around
trying to make his way
to this pool
called Siloam
with mud on his face,
right?
And he's trying
to get to this pool
so that he could
clean up,
not knowing,
not knowing
what's going to happen.
Jesus didn't even say,
right?
But hey,
he's got nothing
better to do
and he's got mud
on his face,
he's got to get it off
so he's going,
right?
But then imagine
as soon as he washed
in the pool,
as soon as the mud
came off his eyes,
try to imagine
that moment,
right?
the transformation
there.
Imagine everything
he must have thought,
everything he must have
felt as he gained
sight for the first
time ever.
It's hard to even
fathom, right?
The experience
of never having
been able to see
and then suddenly
seeing for the first
time, I mean,
it's almost like,
it's almost like
a new birth.
It's almost like
the beginning
of new life.
Maybe the first thing
he sees is the water
in the pool
at Siloam.
Maybe he sees
his own reflection,
does he even know
that it's him?
Does he even know
what a reflection is?
Everything is new.
Everything is changed.
Maybe everything is
confusing,
but you've got to
believe that with
this new sensation,
everything is also
unimaginably exciting
and life-giving
and transformative
and awe-inspiring.
Have you ever seen
those videos
of colorblind people
getting those special
glasses,
where they put them on
and then all of a sudden
they're just weeping.
They're just weeping
because they're seeing
the world
in a whole new way
and brilliance
like they've never
seen before.
Well, this is like
a million times,
a gazillion times
more amazing than that.
This guy can see
his parents' faces
for the first time.
He can walk back home
without a cane
or assistance.
He no longer has
to beg for a living.
Unlike before,
he can now literally
taste and see
that the Lord is good.
He's a brand new man
delivered from darkness
by the light of the world,
Jesus Christ.
And because of this
encounter with Jesus
and by faith in this
true light of the world,
this guy who is only seen
for maybe a couple minutes,
maybe a couple hours,
he now sees better
than the most learned,
the most studied,
educated,
and respected teachers
of his community.
All because he now sees
according to the light
of the world
because of Jesus.
And this is where
I want to end the sermon today
with the Pharisees.
Now the Pharisees,
they didn't have that,
you know,
self-righteous,
judgmental,
hypocritical reputation
in their society
that we so easily
identify them with
in our colloquial speech.
They were really trying
to save Israel.
They believed
what the prophets said,
that Israel had gone
into exile
because they failed
to observe the law.
And what the Pharisees
wanted to do
was they wanted to
save the nation
by obeying the law
and pressuring everyone else
to obey the law.
If anyone saw clearly
the truth about God
and the world,
it was these guys
who were experts
who knew and studied
the law of Moses.
And yet in Jesus'
real life parable,
while everyone can
clearly see the work of God,
this man born blind,
he knows what's happened,
his neighbors see it,
his parents see it,
well, none of them
can deny the transformation
brought about
by the light of the world
into this man's life.
The supposedly righteous Pharisees,
they remained blind.
They remained blind
because they could not see Jesus
for who he really was.
And this is the point,
Jesus' parable,
his miracle,
it ends in.
Verse 39,
Jesus said,
for judgment,
I have come into the world
so that the blind will see
and those who see
will become blind.
Claiming to be wise,
the Pharisees,
they became fools.
Claiming to see,
they proved themselves blind.
And therefore,
according to verse 41,
claiming to be innocent,
they proved themselves
to actually be guilty.
And I just want to say,
isn't that a scary thing?
The scary thing
is that they were so sure.
These were experts
in the law of Moses.
And as a preacher,
this terrifies me.
These guys were so sure
that they were right.
Why?
How could I come up here
with any kind of confidence?
These guys studied
way more than me,
I'm sure.
Speaking to the healed man
in verse 28,
this is how sure they were.
They said,
you are this fellow's disciple.
We are disciples of Moses.
We know that God spoke to Moses.
But as for this fellow,
we don't even know
where he comes from.
And you know,
this was precisely the problem.
They identified
with the law of Moses,
yet they ironically,
they ironically
did not identify
with the very word of God,
Jesus Christ,
the light of the world.
They failed to see
the shadow of Christ
in the law of Moses.
They failed to see
the whole point of the law.
The whole point of the law
was not self-salvation
through obedience
and adherence.
The whole point of the law
was to point out
our slavery
to the dominion of darkness
and our need
for the light of the world.
The law was not meant
to divide good people
from bad people.
But as the missionary
and commentator
Leslie Newbigin writes,
the proper distinction
is between those
who acknowledge
their blindness
and those who don't.
See, the whole point
of this real-life parable
is the sobering truth
that we can think we see.
We can be so sure
and yet be blind
and in the dark
all along.
The Pharisees
were so sure
they were upholding
God's law against Jesus.
The medieval European
crusaders were so sure
they were standing
for God's kingdom
when they slaughtered
thousands, millions of Muslims.
Vladimir Putin
is so sure
that his violent invasion
of Ukraine
is justified
and even in accord
with his Russian
Orthodox Christianity.
But they were,
they are,
all terribly wrong.
And we could be wrong
about so many things too.
None of us
is immune
to darkness.
None of us
is immune
to the blindness.
I'm not.
Neither is Jonathan
nor the Pope
were your favorite
podcaster,
your favorite journalist,
your favorite politician.
None of us.
We're all fallible
and finite
in this broken,
darkened world.
Well then,
you might be thinking,
to whom shall we go?
Who then can we trust?
Are we bound
for a life
of endless deconstruction
and just perpetual skepticism?
Is that the application
of this sermon?
To just doubt everything?
Be skeptical
for the rest of your life.
Trust nothing.
Is that the application
that we shouldn't
trust ourselves
because we could
always be wrong?
Are we left
in the dark forever?
Well, it's to that question
that Jesus' word
to us today
is,
I am
the light of the world.
It's a claim
that absolutely
humbles us
and gives us
the confidence
we need
to live life
to the fullest.
See,
when he says,
I am the light
of the world,
it means that yes,
we could be wrong
about a lot of things,
even most things,
even the most important things.
And therefore,
we must always maintain
a posture of humility
because Jesus alone
is the light
of the world.
We must always be ready
to take the logs
out of our own eyes
before trying to take
the specks
out of other people's eyes.
But I am the light
of the world
doesn't just mean
that I could be wrong
about a whole lot
of things.
I am the light
of the world
also means
that there is truth
that God wants us
to know
and to see
and to live
and depend upon.
And while we can be wrong
about many things,
we can trust
in the light
of the world.
We can trust
in Jesus Christ.
And though
we could never,
though we could never
be the source
of truth and light,
as the moon
reflects the sun,
so can we
relate to Christ,
the light of the world,
declaring with the heavens
his glory.
And Christ Church,
this is the gospel.
This is the gospel
that though we were
in darkness
and though we could
see no light,
the good news
is that we don't
have to supply
our own light.
We don't have to be
the source
of our own light,
but that the
unconquerable
light of the world,
the I am,
has graciously
entered
into our darkness
as the light
of the world,
even hanging
upon a cross
for three hours
in the dark
in order to bring us
the light of life,
hope,
and truth
that we all
so desperately
need.
This is the gospel.
Jesus Christ
is the light
of the world.
Will you pray with me?
Lord, would you
open our eyes
to our blindness?
Would you dispel
our darkness?
Would we trust in you
as the light
of the world?
Would we see ourselves
in this blind man?
Would we see ourselves
in the Pharisees,
even refusing
to acknowledge
all the ways
that we could
conceivably be wrong
before you?
We thank you
that we don't have
to be our own lights.
We thank you
that your son
has come
to give us
the light
that we need.
We ask that you
help us to trust him,
to bear wonderful witness
to this incomparable light
better than any other,
we pray in his name.
Amen.