The true light enlightens everyone
The true light enlightens everyone
25th December 2023
John 1:1-14
Here at the start of John’s Gospel, the start of the Jesus story,
there is no mention of the stable, the shepherds or the wise men.
“In the beginning was the Word…
“He was in the world…
“He came to what was his own…
Do know what this is saying…?
‘Happy Birthday Jesus!’
John’s Gospel begins the Jesus story introducing the big purpose of why Jesus has come into our world.
What has come into being 4in him was life,
and the life was the light of all people.
5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
This light (which cannot be overcome)
is coming to bring the glorious life of God.
Who is this for…?
Instead of the small start we hear in the other gospels – in a small town, in a small family, with a small number of witnesses –
the start of John’s Gospel proclaims the expansive transformation the arrival of Jesus brings.
Who is this for…?
‘The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.’
“..which enlightens everyone…”
Jesus is the dawning of Light;
His presence in the world reveals God’s truth:
· as well as lighting up our life,
· He illuminates those around us - revealing who they truly are.
Let me share a story from one of my favourite writers, Adrian Plass:
God really brought me down to earth once.
He’s rather good at that sort of thing.
We'd gone for a pre-Christmas holiday.
It was early December, bitingly cold.
(they live in the UK – you may have heard it’s cold there around Christmas!)
One morning, after a long, lingering, excessive breakfast, we all dressed in layer upon layer of the warmest clothes we could find, and set off, a procession of human barrels, to go for a walk in the ice-cream air.
We went a new way.
Through a white farm gate and across an expanse of wind-flattened, metallic green grass, towards [where] the sea stretched away for ever, merging with the sky in the strange pale distance.
As we [walked], I reflected on the fact that we were happy - all of us.
We are a close family, but it didn't often happen that we all achieved contentment, all at the same time, when we were all together.
You have to work hard to keep a family of five reasonably happy. It's like the circus act where all those plates are kept spinning on the top of tall, thin sticks by someone rushing from one to the other at great speed. The difference with a family is that you never get a chance to stop and take a bow. You just carry on, and get tired. Holidays had always been an opportunity for [us] to enjoy an awareness of our whole selves, and to give some thought to what we needed to keep our plates spinning.
[We stopped and looked over the sea]
I forgot everything else as I gazed out over this hidden corner of the world.
I felt a sudden surge of pride about belonging to the same world as the vast shining sea, the blue-white wash of the sky, and the massive, granulated bulk of the cliffs. These, surely, were symbols of God. Huge, beautiful, sublime, desirable, yet impossible to contain or define narrowly. I was lost in wonder....
“Daddy, want to go loo, daddy!"
My youngest son's voice arrived in my consciousness with urgent haste. His little face was strained with the knowledge that disaster was imminent.
As I struggled to reduce his Michelin-like proportions to an appropriate state of undress, I spoke to God in my mind with some belligerence.
“Goodness knows," I complained, "I get little enough time as it is to actually relax and enjoy beautiful things.
Why should I have to come down from where I was to cope with little problems like this?"
“I did” said God.
Who is this for…?
‘The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
In other words, no one can be a stranger to Christ.
He has already met them and encountered them in some way.
If that is true, no one needs to be a stranger to us.
With the dawning of this Light, all can (and should) be welcomed.
C. S. Lewis expressed this insight memorably:
"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations – these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — … everlasting splendours."
Today, the start of John’s gospel reminds us that there is a darkness that would overwhelm us if we were left to ourselves and our own efforts at self-improvement.
The glorious good news is that we are not alone, the Light has dawned onto human history two thousand years ago.
Jesus Christ is the Light who has triumphed over the darkness.
If Lewis is correct that there are no ordinary people, we are free to explore the splendour of living when we walk in the Light that dawns in Jesus.
We are emboldened to refuse to take the destructiveness and dislocation of human sin as the final answer.
‘The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.’
What has come into being 4in him was life,
and the life was the light of all people.
5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
Happy Birthday Jesus!