God Is Light
1 John 1:1-10

Looking at our planet from space, astronauts and satellites tell a story of startling expansion and changes. It’s the story of human progress told from a unique perspective. The perspective of those few who have orbited the earth, looking down at our tiny planet from the vastness of space. They’re the ones who have witnessed the change … human expansion. They and their pictures tell the story.

And when is that story most visible? At night. For those astronauts, it’s the part of the planet tilted away from the sun at any given moment. How is the change to our planet visible from space? Light. At night, vast cities sprawl out in a web of lights. Astronaut Don Pettit explains in a Smithsonian documentary, “From the first time I flew to the last time, the main effect I saw on Earth was at night time, and it was the extent of lighting.”

Astronauts love taking pictures of cites at night. But there’s one city that stands out, not because of its size, color, or shape, but it’s brightness. Pettit says. “I like to refer to Las Vegas, tongue and cheek, as the beacon of humanity … I don’t know if it’s the brightest city on earth but it is really, really bright.”

With billions of LED lights, and countless billboards and marquees, Vegas generates more light per square mile than any other city on the planet. At the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip, a beam of light is projected up into the night sky from the Luxor resort pyramid. Curved mirrors are positioned to collect light from 39 xenon lamps creating a single intense, narrow beam. This one light produces 42 billion candle watts of power. The beam is visible by planes flying over Los Angeles, 275 miles away. It is an unmissable beacon from the heart of the Mojave desert.

Now, there’s nothing inherently bad about the lights of Vegas themselves. But Vegas is, in many ways, both a symbol of our excesses and cravings AND the epicenter of those excesses and cravings. We all know the saying, “What happens in Vegas … stays in Vegas.” Why is that the line? Because people go there to indulge. To do, and get away with, things they wouldn’t do or be able to get away with at home. Our excesses and cravings permeate our culture. They aren’t restricted to Vegas. Vegas just celebrates them, embraces them, and doesn’t try to hide them. And like moths to flame, we are drawn to that false light.

But there is another light. A light that shines even brighter, overpowering even the brightest of lights that shine in this world. The light of Christ is real light. True light. Not the false, ensnaring lights of this world. On this fourth Sunday of Advent, as we continue our journey toward Christmas with a series of sermons on the Light of Christ, turn with me to 1 John 1:1-10. We’re going to start with Vv. 1-4.

John starts his Gospel with the words “In the beginning … was the Word.” And the Word, of course, is Christ. There he’s mirroring the language of Genesis, the first words of the Bible. “In the beginning … God created.” Yes, he’s drawing our attention to the eternal nature of Christ, but he also wants us to know that the work of Christ produces a recreation of our lives that is every bit as miraculous and majestic and powerful as God’s initial creative work described in Genesis.

But here, in the first of three letters that bear his name, John is using similar language to emphasize the eternal nature of Christ. The one whose birth we celebrate during the Christmas season is the eternal one, clothed in time. The one who created time clothes himself with time, steps into time, for one reason – to enable us to know him. God wants us to know him, just as he already knows us. Jesus, who John calls the “word of life,” is God speaking to us. God telling us what he is like, so that we can understand him.

Lots of people, when they think about Jesus, imagine that he went through this life more or less untouched by the things around him. Yes, he had compassion on people. But we really have a tendency to think of Jesus almost floating through life, overcoming sin and Satan and his darkness with barely any effort at all. But the truth is, he went through his life the same way we go through ours. The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus was both made like us in every way (2:17) AND was tempted like us in every way (4:15), and yet did not sin.

Look at what John says in Vv. 2-3. I saw him with my eyes. I touched him with my hands. All of the apostles did. Why does John bring that up? Because he wants us to know … he is real. This really happened. I saw him. I touched him. I smelled him. Jesus was the eternal word in a form I could see and hear and smell and touch. He was, and is, real.

And living in his light brings two things to our lives – fellowship and joy. Look at V. 3. God accomplished in Christ what God set out to accomplish in Christ. He made it possible for us to know him, just as he knows us. A loving, joy-filled relationship with “the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” And out of our common relationship with God grows an ever deepening fellowship with one another too.

Now, fellowship is way deeper than what happens out in the lobby after church as we drink bad coffee and inhale more cheese than is wise. It is deeper than what happens in church basketball and softball leagues. The fellowship John is describing is deep, authentic relationships with one another that grows specifically out of our ever-deepening relationship with God. It’s been said that Sunday morning is the most segregated period of time in our culture.

I would argue that it is also the most artificial, inauthentic period of time in our culture. Traditionally, we wear clothes to church that we don’t wear at any other time. And there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Dressing up can be a sign of respect and reverence. But we also put on clothes and masks that no one can see, but are every bit as real. We pretend that we’ve got it all together. That everything is great, especially when it isn’t. Because we think that admitting that we’re struggling or that we’ve failed is evidence that our faith is weak. Or just because we don’t want others to know the real us. I think admitting that we’ve failed, that we’re struggling, is evidence of a maturing faith and a deepening relationship with God that overflows into deeper, more authentic relationships with one another.

But there’s a problem – we’d rather hide in a false light that is really darkness, a false light that pretends, that puts on a mask, instead of stepping into the light of Christ and the deepening fellowship and joy that produces in us. Look at Vv. 5-6. God is light. John doesn’t say “God is like the light.” He isn’t giving us an analogy or a metaphor. He doesn’t even say “God is the light.” He says “God is light.” Light, like love, is a part of the essential nature and character of God.

Light, in the Bible, has two primary things that it represents – truth and purity. That means darkness primarily represents ignorance or error (false belief) and evil. What we believe and profess, and how we live. If the light of Christ is really in us, what we say and how we live come into alignment. We don’t say we follow Christ and then live as if we don’t.

Now, be careful, because we can fuel a lot of judgment and legalism here. We aren’t talking about someone who is really struggling with something in their lives like pride or greed or bitterness or envy or being materialistic or dealing with an addiction – a person who is really fighting and maybe for a long while keeps falling down and getting back up and falling down again. We are not to judge others because we can’t see what God might be doing and the slow progress that is being made deep inside someone. We ARE to regularly take a hard look inside, not to wallow in shame but to see what God wants us to see, the things he wants to fix in our lives.

God IS light, and in him there is NO darkness. Nothing hidden. And as his light permeates our own lives, not only does our relationship with God deepen, our relationships with one another deepen too, as we step more into his light and allow ourselves to really be seen by one another. If our relationships with one another are shallow, chance are our relationship with God is shallow too.

In his book “Grace” Max Lucado writes:

Ever since my high school buddy and I drank ourselves sick with a case of quarts, I have liked beer …. Out of the keg, tap, bottle, or frosty mug – it doesn’t matter to me. I like it.

[But I also know that] alcoholism haunts my family ancestry. I have early memories of following my father through the halls of a rehab center to see his sister. Similar scenes repeated themselves with other relatives for decades. Beer doesn’t mix well with my family DNA. So at the age of twenty-one, I swore off it ….

Then a few years back something resurrected my cravings …. At some point I reached for a can of brew instead of a can of soda, and as quick as you can pop the top, I was a beer fan again. A once-in-a-while … then once-a-week … then once-a-day beer fan.

I kept my preference to myself. No beer at home, lest my daughters think less of me. No beer in public. Who knows who might see me? None at home, none in public leaves only one option: convenience-store parking lots. For about a week I was that guy in the car, drinking out of the brown paper bag.

No, I don’t know what resurrected my cravings, but I remember what stunted them. En route to speak at a men’s retreat, I stopped for my daily purchase. I walked out of the convenience store with a beer pressed against my side, scurried to my car for fear of being seen, opened the door, climbed in, and opened the can.

Then it dawned on me. I had become the very thing I hate: a hypocrite. A pretender. Two-faced. Acting one way. Living another. I had written sermons about people like me – Christians who care more about appearance than integrity. It wasn’t the beer but the cover-up that nauseated me.

[So what] happened with my hypocrisy? First I threw the can of beer in the trash. Next I sat in the car for a long time, praying. Then I scheduled a visit with our church elders. I didn’t embellish or downplay my actions; I just confessed them. And they, in turn, pronounced forgiveness over me. Jim Potts, a dear, silver-haired saint, reached across the table and put his hand on my shoulder and said something like this: “What you did was wrong. But what you are doing tonight is right. God’s love is great enough to cover your sin. Trust his grace.”

After talking to the elders, I spoke to the church. At our midweek gathering I once again told the story. I apologized for my duplicity and requested the prayers of the congregation. What followed was a refreshing hour of confession in which other people did the same. The church was strengthened, not weakened, by our honesty. If we’re going to live in the light, we have to give up our desire to hide in the darkness.

So how do we live in the light? Look at Vv. 7-10. We start by allowing Christ to cleanse us. And then we keep letting him cleanse us. But if we’re going to let him cleanse us, we’re going to have to admit that we need to be cleansed. Both initially and in an ongoing way. Look at V. 8. One of the things that keeps people away from Christ is not being able to admit that there is darkness in us. I mean, I’m not a murderer, right?

In his book Vanishing Grace, Philip Yancey shares a story about a World War II veteran, currently serving as a pastor, who had participated in the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. At the end of the war, as the U.S. soldiers marched through the gates of Dachau, nothing could prepare them for what they found in the boxcars within the camp. The man said,

A buddy and I were assigned to one boxcar. Inside were human bodies, stacked in neat rows, exactly like firewood. Most were corpses, but a few still had a faint pulse. The Germans, ever meticulous, had planned out the rows—alternating the heads and feet, and accommodating different sizes and shapes of bodies. Our job was like moving furniture. We would pick up each body—so light!—and carry it to a designated area. I spent two hours in the boxcar, two hours that for me included every known emotion: rage, pity, shame, revulsion – every negative emotion, I should say. They came in waves, all but the rage. It stayed, fueling our work.

Then a fellow soldier named Chuck agreed to escort twelve SS officers in charge of Dachau to an interrogation center nearby … A few minutes later the crew working in the boxcar heard bursts of a machine gun. Soon Chuck came strolling out, smoke still curling from the tip of his weapon. “They all tried to run away,” he said with a leer.

When Yancey asked if anyone reported what Chuck did or took disciplinary action, the pastor said,

No, and that’s what got to me. It was on that day that I felt called by God to become a pastor. First, there was the horror of the corpses in the boxcar. I could not absorb such a scene. I did not even know such Absolute Evil existed. But when I saw it, I knew beyond doubt that I must spend my life serving whatever opposed such Evil – serving God. Then came the incident with Chuck. I had a nauseating fear that the captain might call on me to escort the next group of SS guards, and an even more dread fear that if he did, I might do the same as Chuck. The beast that was within those guards was also within me.

One of the things that keeps people away from Christ is having to admit that there’s darkness in me that needs the light. But some of us have been walking with Christ for a while. We’ve been in worship. We’ve attended Bible studies and small groups. We volunteer in an outreach ministry like the community meal, or we serve on the worship team.

We’ve been walking in the light, but the light has dimmed. We aren’t growing like we used to. We don’t feel as close to Christ as we used to. Why? We’ve stopped paying attention to the light. It’s there, but we aren’t watching. We aren’t noticing what Christ is shining his light on. The darkness and shadow that are still there that he wants to work on now. He doesn’t come in and change everything all at once. He works on what HE wants to work on WHEN he’s ready to work on it. Cleanse it. And when he’s ready, we’re ready. Even if we don’t feel ready. Once we start living in the light, we have to be willing to stay in the light. To allow his cleansing work to keep going.

Once we’ve stepped into his light, we have to be intentional about staying in it. Life happens. Things change. Something that wasn’t an issue for me before might become one now. Something that I thought I had beaten comes back in a new way. That’s just life. But Jesus is always right there, shining his light. But he doesn’t just shine his light and then make us do the work. There’s work for us to do, sure. But he’s the one who does the cleansing. And he’s the one who gives us victory. Look again at V. 7.

Staying in the light isn’t easy. It’s tempting to step out. To go back into hiding. To start pretending again. In Christ we can resist that temptation. In Christ we can face the darkness, knowing that Christ is leading us to a joy beyond anything we can imagine. John calls it “fullness of joy.” Joy isn’t found hiding in the darkness. It comes when we take his hand, trust his love, let him work, and step into the light. Let’s pray.