The Life, the Light, and the Darkness
Rev. Richard A. Bolland

John 1:1-18
(January 2, 2005 Sermon Transcript)

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        Dear friends in Christ, as we gather on this first Sunday of the church year, perhaps you will remember back aways, to 1996. In 1996 a movie was produced which was called "The Ghost and the Darkness". It was about building a railroad over a Ugandan river in the year 1898. And during the course of that building, the contractors and those who were working on it were attacked by two lions, who earned the names, well, you guess it, "The Ghost", and "The Darkness".

        And they earned that name because they terrified people at night. During the course of this event, 140 men had their lives taken by these two wild beasts, and the entire encampment lived in terror and fear of the night and the darkness that usually brought the death.

        Finally, the animals were killed by a British Colonel, a Colonel John Henry Patterson, and the reign of terror came to an end.

        This gospel lesson that we read today talks also of a reign of terror, and a reign of darkness. And it talks about one who came to dispel that reign. And one who comes to dispel the darkness and to bring light. That one is, of course, our Lord Jesus Christ.

        The word of God does not lie when it speaks. It speaks the truth. And it tells us of God the Father, graciously and lovingly, sending to this world his one and only son. In the Greek it is even more clear and plain. His son is described as one who is monogenhV. He is of the one and the very same essence of the Father. And so this one comes to end the violence wrought by the evil one, who takes life and who makes it his own. Not for good, but for evil. And he ravages the creation with unbelief and deception.

        And on this second Sunday after Christmas, what we do today is take joy, and take life, and take light, and know that the Redeemer Savior who has been sent by the Father in heaven, has been sent precisely to save us. The word of God has become flesh and has chosen to dwell among us, that the darkness might be dispelled.

        But first, let’s talk a little bit about the darkness.

        To be in the darkness is, obviously, to be unable to see. Literally to be blind for all intents and purposes. I recall once, many years ago, going down, perhaps as you have, to the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, down, well, you can see Texas from there! And as you go down into the bowels of the earth into that place, as you take the tour, usually at some point in time, the lights down there that illuminate that vast cavern are turned off. And you will never know darkness as you have known darkness at that point in time. There is no light of any kind down there. And suddenly you realize what it is like to be blind. You can literally hold your hand that close in front of your face and you cannot see it at all.

        Well, thank God the tour managers turned the lights back on, because it would have been terrifying to try to find one’s way out of there, if not impossible, without the light.

        Literally being unable to see. That is the condition of a sin-fallen world. Literally blind. Spiritual unable to see. Such a terror would have remained on mankind’s lot had not God acted, had God not sent His son. From the very beginning of the world came the fall into the dark blindness in the Garden of Eden. We simply, as people who live in a fallen world, cannot begin to imagine the perfection of what God had created to begin with, the very world in which our first parents lived. And neither can we possibly know or begin to imagine the gravity of the loss that they suffered when they chose to tell God that something else, anything else, was more important than He was.

        And so, the darkness fell. And they suffered due to their disobedience. And so do all of their offspring. You and I. The world of this fallenness cast mankind into utter blindness to the reality of the fall itself.

        Consider for a moment that those who do not know the light of Christ, for all the joy and light and truth that He brings, are those who simply have no idea what the darkness is all about. The darkness is simply normal. It is simply the way things are. We’ve come to expect nothing else but the fruits of sin in this world. And as we watch it play out, people struggle with answering the question, "Why do such evil things happen?"

        Now, we’ve seen terrible death and destruction which has come as a result of the earthquake and tsunami that has wracked the Indian Ocean this past week. And we are stunned at the pictures that come back. And we wonder, "How can such things happen? How can God possibly be a God of love if He has the power to intervene and He does not?"

        I would ask, "Why doesn’t God intervene every time you choose to sin?" (Or I do.) He certainly has the power to do that, does He not? He certainly has the power to make all the effects of sin cease to all the ends of the earth. And I assure you, one day He shall. But, in the meantime, God, in His mercy, lets the terribleness play out, both in our lives and in the world. And He has a very specific purpose for doing so, in that He calls us to understand that there is nothing there for us. There is no hope without Him. We must be driven to His grace and to His cross, for unless there is grace there, there is grace nowhere.

        And unless you understand the reality of sin, and how it has effected the creation of the world itself, then all the evil that happens in the world will be absolutely nothing but an endless series of mindless insanities. If you understand sin, and its gravity, you will understand why things are the way they are. And without it, you cannot.

        May I suggest also that part of sin’s blindness is the inability to accept that spiritual blindness is forever, were it not for the intervention of God, while we can know much about God from the creation that He makes around us. We can see there His great power, His incredible intelligence, His true love and provision for us. But we cannot see, you cannot see an answer to the reality of sin from the creation. And indeed, as we look at the creation, we only see its results.

        St. Paul writes, in Romans, these very plain and simple words. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.   It is death that is caused by sin.

        Now, we like to put on it all kinds of biological causes. Well, you die of disease, or you die of an accident, or you die as a result of a heinous act of one human being perpetrated upon another. But I would suggest to you that is not the case. For in each of those illustrations I’ve just pointed out to you, what you have is nothing other than a result of living in a sin-fallen world.

        Disease was not the way in which this world was created. Tsunamis were not God’s idea. Hurricanes do not take the lives of thousands because God wills it. But rather, God has allowed us to see the reality of sin, so that we may know and need to see the light.

        And that light is revealed in His word. The word does not lie when it speaks of the eternal nature of this darkness. Listen to Revelation. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars-- their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

        These are not the most popular passages of Holy Writ. But please, be reminded they are Holy Writ.

        We are not here gathered in this sanctuary simply to feel good. That is not why we are here. We are here to be redeemed. We are here to recognize the love of God. That despite what was due to us, that I just described, God, in His grace, has allowed His word to become flesh, and dwell among us, that we might know the light and understand the salvation He brings.

        But, strangely enough, spiritual blindness seeks every opportunity to dismiss plain words like I just read to you. They pass them off as superstition or ancient myth, or the mental meanderings of overzealous early Christians. But nothing could be farther from the truth.

        The text reads, He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. They were blind. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. They preferred the blindness and the darkness to the light.

        Sometimes people look at God and they like to selectively pick out those attributes that please them. And, of course, disregard those they dislike. But, God is all that God is, and how He describes Himself and reveals Himself to be. He is love. But He is also absolutely just. He is compassionate. But, He is also absolutely holy. He is gracious. But He is absolutely righteous. We don’t get to pick and choose what we like about God and disregard what we dislike. Rather, we love Him for all that He is. Despite man’s desperate need to see the truth and escape the blindness and darkness of death and hell, people will sometimes simply close their eyes to it.

        Then, there is life. And there is the light of life. And our text says that this light of life is Jesus Christ our Lord, the word who has become flesh and dwells among us.

        What is the antidote for darkness? Well, the kids figured it out... you turn on the flashlight! You flip a lightswitch in a room and the darkness goes away. The darkness simply can’t remain in the presence of the light.

        Maybe a few of you remember a couple of years back we held a Tenebrae Service, a service of darkness, just before Easter. And, lo and behold, we had forgotten about daylight savings time. And we got here, and the more candles we put out, the more we realized that it wasn’t going to get dark. It’s hard to invite the darkness in when there is light, because the two are not compatible.

        Likewise it is God alone who also is the light, and who also dispels the darkness. Listen to the words of God, both at the beginning of his work and at the end. Genesis 1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

        And then, at the end of God’s word, describing the New Jerusalem. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. As it was in the beginning, so shall it be at the end. The only light that we need is that of God Himself, because God is light.

        Likewise, Jesus lays claim Himself to the quality of light. In John chapter 8 it is written, 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."

        And likewise, we read again and again that love is manifested as light by God’s people. And so the only source of spiritual light that can dispel the darkness of sin and its hellish result is that which Jesus gives us Himself, for He is the light. In John 14, Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."

        If you see the son, you have been able to see the Father! What is astounding is that many reject it, when it is available. They prefer the darkness. The innate, sin-blinded soul of man seems to rather remain blind than to acknowledge that perhaps there is one greater than he. It is, I guess, something that is innate in us that we would prefer to be our own boss, to such an extent that we would prefer to live in dark blindness.

        Romans 1 describes it rather accurately. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-- his eternal power and divine nature-- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools

        Such is the nature of sin-blinded man.

        However, the gift of God is belief in the son of God, who is Jesus Christ our Lord. And in that gift, the dark veil of blindness is lifted by the power of the word of God, not by the power of man. This is alone the work of the Holy Spirit. Listen to our text itself. It makes it more than clear. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- (how?) children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.   It is God who brings life, and that includes physical as well as spiritual life. He truly is the light of the world, and the light of salvation for mankind. It is the truth that brings the light to us so that we might see clearly what we had not seen clearly before.

        Now, the wounds of Christ bear eloquent testimony to our own redemption. Now, we can see the cross, and for all the beauty of it, together with its ugliness, we know that here alone is the forgiveness of sins and the light of the world, that opens blind eyes and established peace between God and man.

        Now, the blood of Christ, terrible though it may seem, is the most precious price of the ransom that His son paid for our grace, and for our salvation. This precious blood now cleanses us from all sin.

        It was toward that forgiveness that David the Psalmist writes. Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O LORD....For the sake of your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity, though it is great....Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins.

        And He has. Not only for David, but for each and every one of us.

        The writer of Hebrews put it this way. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

        The word atonement itself is the word that is the equivalent of "blood covering". The sprinkling of the blood that is being spoken of here is what the high priest did once a year when he entered the Holy of Holies, to sprinkle the blood of the lamb, and unblemished lamb, on the Arc of the Covenant. And there, the sins of the people were forgiven.

        And now, the blood of the Lamb of God is sprinkled on you, and on me, and our sins are healed. And we can see. We can see the word made flesh who dwells among us, who is God incarnate. We can see, as Jesus told His disciples, in these words. At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it."

        We stand in that same privileged company. And what’s more, God continues to improve our vision of Him. He does so through our baptism, at which time our eyes are opened to begin with, for the Spirit is given. He does so as we worship, and in so-doing we continue to hear Him speak. And what’s more, we continue to have our vision improved when we study His holy, inerrant and inspired word of God. And He sharpens our insight.

        And what’s more, when we come to receive His body and blood, once again our eyes are open to see the Christ, and to see His love for us. Therefore, through word and sacrament, Christ continues to help us see, and to know Him with greater and greater clarity.

        "The Ghost" and "The Darkness" were mere animals. They were vicious, terrifying animals. But they only terrified and took the lives of people for a time. The evil one who roams around this world seeking whom he may devour, according to Holy Scripture, is the one who brings, and establishes, the darkness of sin and unbelief, and who destroys unnumbered souls forever.

        Jesus Christ our Lord has condescended to take on the human family as His own. And has taken on human flesh and suffered all, even death on a cross, that we might not know the torments that He endured. That we might know instead the life of light forever.

        Paul wrote, For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

        In the name of Him who is the life, and the light, Jesus Christ the righteous one, Amen.