Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 8:12 (ESV)
“I am the Bread of Life.” “I give rivers of living waters.” Jesus now adds that he is the Light of world.
Remember, God led the Israelites through the wilderness with a pillar of smoke by day, and a pillar of fire by night. Through the long dark nights, if you followed that pillar of fire, that light, you’d be okay. Jesus is kind of like that pillar of fire. But he says he is even more!
Jesus says, “I am the light not just of Israel, but of the whole world.” How do you know where to go? How do you know how to live? Follow Jesus. Whoever follows him, Jesus says, will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
John used language like this in the prologue. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Now there was another man who bore witness to the light, but he himself was not the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
His light is the life of the world.
First, let’s note that Jesus says he is the Light of the world. He’s not a light of the world–one among many lights. If the world will have light; it will have it in Christ. True knowledge, true wisdom is found in the person of Jesus Christ. The Greeks, Paul says, want wisdom, and the Jews want signs and wonders, but we preach Christ and him crucified.
He is the light of the world.
To have Jesus is to have light. Light illuminates. Light reveals. Light makes plain. Light allows us to see clearly.
The Light has come to the earth. And how did the people of the world respond? With joy and thanksgiving that our God had come? No, Jesus says to his brothers in John 7. They hate me because I tell them their works are evil.
The world has rejected this light because it loves the darkness. If you love darkness, you hate light. Light and darkness cannot coexist. Light reveals whatever darkness hopes to conceal.
But this is so crucial: Jesus, God himself, reveals our wickedness–the things we like to keep in the dark. But it is to defeat those very things that the Light has dawned.
The darkness may not like the light, but the darkness cannot overcome it.
On our last trip to South Asia, we went way into the jungle and joined a house church for worship. Everything was dark; it was getting late in the evening, there weren’t lights in the little house, and a little girl clicks on her flashlight, pulls out her handwritten hymnal, and we all began to sing.
When her light came on and we could sing together, this passage of Scripture came to mind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Light is breaking out in dark places. That flashlight is like a parable. The light of the Gospel is breaking into our dark world, in unlikely places, with unlikely people.
Has the light of Jesus shone into your life? Does he light your path? Does he give meaning to your world?