The promise of "light"

But on the whole, light is a word of promise, of positive dreams and hopes. When we drive through a long tunnel, as I have often done through the 17 km long Gotthard Tunnel that connects Switzerland with Italy, you are glad to see the light of day again. When you go to a new place, it is eerie at night. You start suspecting ghosts behind the trees and in the bushes - although a Christian is not supposed to believe in ghosts. Only when you see the place at daylight, are the fears taken away and you get used to the place. And then there is Cathy Freeman with the Olympic torch climbing the stairs to Olympic heaven.

In religions of all times and around the world "light" entails the promise of the divine. They speak about illumination or journeys into light. Near-death experiences which some of you with many others around the world have had, are light experiences. Recently in Western Australia a cemetery for deceased infants was created and it is decorated with butterflies. Children who are dying and are aware of the coming of death draw butterflies to describe their experiences. Butterflies and light take away the fear of darkness and demons. And those who have had such experiences have often lost the fear of death.

These hopes, associated with "light", hopes that people have, are not denied by the Christian faith. They are taken up and given depth and reason and foundation. They are lifted out of the particular and subjective and are given the status, that the hope for light and the experience of light are not merely subjective illusions. But that they can be true. And if such truth is grounded in God, then it is true for all people.

The promise of light finds its ground and fulfilment in Christ. The description that God is love is given colour by also naming God as life and as light. The God who loves the world and reconciled the world with himself, "is light and in him there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5).

Jesus is God's man by echoing in his own life that God is light. So, when Jesus is confronted with a blind man, he is not willing to enter into religious discussions about the nature and cause of illness. His concern is light! Echoing the God who is light! In that situation it meant, not putting blame on people or on God, but bringing light and healing and wholeness into the situation.

Since God is concerned with the whole person, therefore Jesus now tries to teach them and teach us the subtle but important difference between health and simply a cure. He tries to get across the idea that health means not just to have a functioning body, but to be whole.

The physically blind man can now see after Jesus has touched his life, and the Pharisees, the religious people par excellence, who can see with their eyes, are blind to the truth that God is light.

The story invites us to see life on two levels.

There is the level of physical health. When we are young and healthy, we think that we can conquer the world. Nothing can stand in our way. Muscles and hormones determine life. Only the more sensitive souls realise that there is more to life than muscles and hormones. Physical health is important. When we are young, we take it for granted. When we get older, we appreciate it. But when we think about it, we are all aware of our human frailties. The older we get or the sicker we are, we can no longer look away. We are getting weaker. It takes more effort to do the things that need to be done. We can no longer push it away. We can no longer assign it to the subconscious. We know that we are frail and that one day we all have to die.

Therefore, although blindness is bad, the greater problem is whether there is an eternity and how I fare in light of eternity. Cure for the blind man becomes the possibility of health when Jesus confronts him with the question of eternity:

"Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He (the blind man who can now see with his eyes) answered, "And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him." Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he." He said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped him. (John 9:35-38)

The cure becomes health when he can not only see with his eyes, but when he discovers that God is light, when he believes and worships.

That is the reason, why in the same church, from which the Gospel of John comes to us, healing is seen not only as a cure, but also as forgiveness:

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:5-9)

That then is the first thing that we need to remember: that "God is light", and Jesus has brought this light into our world.

Every religious experience has the tendency towards sectarianism. I have experienced something precious - I like it; I want to protect it and keep it and nurture it. The church then becomes a filling station where I tank for my life in the world. And the church is supposed to provide the divine halo and give divine reason for my religious convictions. This withdrawal, this sectarianism, can meet us in many different ways.

There is the sectarianism of muscles, speed and beauty. It is the Olympic religion or the Australian Open. The celebration of strength and beauty. You did not have to add much to make the opening ceremony to the Olympic games into a worship service. Charles Darwin provided the philosophical legitimacy for the religion of muscles, speed and beauty. He formulated a theory of random selection and the survival of the fittest, as he tried to understand nature. And there is enough truth to it to make it attractive for us. Hitler used the same theory against the Jews first and then against his own people. Only the strong deserve to win and survive. In the Olympic heaven there is no room for the disabled and sick and frail and old. Olympic games and tennis games are wonderful pastime activities. Give them religious dimensions and they exclude most of us.

And then there is the sectarianism of religious withdrawal. Even in the church where the Gospel of John was written, there was the tendency to speak of the darkness of the world, from which the Christians as the people of light had to flee. But they lived under active opposition and persecution. They had to suffer and die for their faith. For us there is no reason to withdraw from the world, if we want to reflect the light of Christ.

The light, which Christ brings into our world, is the light that shines in darkness, and since it is light that comes from the very being of God, it shines for all people. The little world "all" is important. It includes you and me. God's light wants to bring light into your life. But it has a cutting edge. God's torch is designated to come to those who have given up on life. It is for the 8% of poor people in our city. It is for the old lady who is harassed by her drunken neighbours. It is for the single mum who has to bear all the emotional and financial burden of bringing up her children. It is for the drug dependent and alcoholic who don't know how to get out of the vicious cycle of dependence. It is for the wife who is beaten and who loses faith in her own worth.

Jesus, who carries God's light into the world, is therefore pictured as the light "of the world". You remember, how in the overture to John's Gospel, Jesus is pictured as "the life" who "was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. . The true light, which enlightens everyone .. (John 1:4f., 9)

So that is the second thing that we need to remember. The light of Christ is not just for the strong and the chosen; it is for all people. That includes you and me. That includes those who have given up hope that light will ever shine into their life again.

Now, if it is true, that we have the human tendency to make up our own religion, which mostly turns out to be a religion of strength and beauty or of withdrawal, while Christ is the light of the world, that difference must become clear and public somewhere.

Listen to the tragic element in the story of Christ, the light of the world:

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. (John 1:10f.)

That is what the Bible calls judgment. Not that God enjoys judgment. God is love and God wants to heal and save and liberate people. But the fact is the we all want to have God on our terms.

3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 3:17 "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 3:18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 3:19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 3:20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 3:21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God." (John 3:16-21)

There are many lights in the world, including, of course, the Olympic light. They promise a religion for the strong, the beautiful, the healthy, the religious. Jesus is the light that shines in darkness, that gives dignity to the weak and hope to the oppressed. We need to decide whom we are going to follow and then accept the consequence of our decision.

This then is the third point that we want to ponder. God is light - that was our first point. God's light is for all people - that was our second point. Now, if God's light shines in darkness and wants to bring some to people who have been pushed to the margin or have withdrawn from life, then we need to distinguish God's light from the many other lights that promise heaven. We need to judge and decide what light we are to follow.

The decision, when we let Jesus to be the light of our life, is called faith. The same texts that speak about Jesus as the light of the world, that he is the light that shines on all people, also emphasise the fragility of light. The light of God is not independent of God's love. It is an expression of God's love. And love cannot be violent. Love cannot coerce. That is the sadness in the picture of Holman Hunt. Christ as the expression of God's love and God's light, can only knock, he cannot open the door into the human heart by force.

Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me. (Rev 3:20)

Christ is God giving God's very self to us. Since God is love, God can only knock and beg. Here is the promise and the invitation contained in the grand story of God's unconditional love:

. Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life." (John 8:12)

I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. (John 12:46)

. to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God (John 1:12)