I Am the Light of the World (John 8:12–30)

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Jen Wilkin: Melissa did a beautiful job of talking to us about how physical things are used to teach spiritual truths in the scriptures, and she gave us the metaphor of bread, and she assured us that Christ is the solution to our spiritual hunger. I now get to take us to the next physical thing that is used to teach us the spiritual truth. Christ is indeed the solution to our spiritual blindness, to our spiritual blindness. Would you stand with me for the reading of God’s Word. Turn to John chapter eight, if you have your Bible, and then if you’re able stand with me. John eight, verses 12 through 20, starting in verse 12, it says 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. So the Pharisees said to him, You are bearing witness about yourself. Your testimony is not true. Jesus answered, even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I came from or where I am going, you judge according to the flesh. I judge no one. Yet, even if I do judge, My judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent Me. In your law, it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness about me. They said to Him, therefore, Where is your father? And Jesus answered, You know neither me nor my father. If you knew me, you would know my father also, these words he spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple. But no one arrested him, because this hour had not yet come. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. So we find Jesus a little further along in the Gospel of John doing what he does so well. He is using what we would refer to as a parabolic image. You can argue that all of the I am statements of Christ are like little miniature parables. A parable is something the story or an image that is taken from everyday life to teach a spiritual truth. And so here we see from the Pharisees the kind of reaction that we see generally when Jesus tells a parable. They’re a little thrown off. They’re like, hang on, you can’t just say these things about yourself. There’s no one to bear witness to the fact that what you’re saying is true. And then Jesus says, Well, yeah, there is my father. And you can just feel the Pharisees being like, I’m sorry. Who? And so in a very similar way to the way that his other parables, the parables of the kingdom and so on. Hit the ears of those who do not have ears to hear. We see his image of being the light of the world, sort of hitting them in the chest and bouncing right off, but they do understand what it is that he is implying. But before we get to that, let’s think about the image that Jesus chooses here, he chooses the image of light. Now we know intuitively that light is something that makes us feel safe and that brings comfort to us. My dear friend Jonathan Pennington has reflected, no one has to teach you to be afraid of the dark. No one has to teach to be afraid of the dark. You know intuitively, light is safety, dark is danger. Not only that, but light is the revelation of things. Darkness is the concealment of things. Dr Pennington also says there are no scenes in horror movies that happen at noon. I We know intuitively to connect light to the idea of safety and well being. We know intuitively to connect darkness to the ideas of danger and harm and concealment. And so when Jesus chooses his descriptive metaphor, the problem that we have as modern listeners as that we can miss the way that light has been understood during most of human history, because during most of human history, the idea of light was also linked to an element of danger. Do you believe me, it’s only been. And within the last 120 years or so that you could walk into your house and flip a switch and have the light come on. When we think about light, we think about electric light. We think about light that is simple to have. We can have light wherever we go. If you were walking down a dark alley and you didn’t feel comfortable, what would you do? You would pull out your phone, hit the flashlight button, and you would feel some measure of comfort or safety. Light creates safety. In fact, if you were to go to a city planning meeting and they were dealing with crime in your city, one of the first steps that you can take to diminish crime in a particular area is to do what it’s to put up lights in areas where crime is happening. But it’s only in recent human history that light was a simple matter to achieve. For most of human history, the idea of light was inseparable from the idea of what fire and fire requires safe handling. In fact, in 1871 Mrs. O’Leary’s cow famously kicked over a what a lantern in the shed Are you humming the song and the great Chicago fire burned for five days in October of 1871 the fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles of the city, including over 17,000 structures, and left more than 100,000 residents homeless, all because someone’s source of light in the Darkness was not handled with the proper care that it deserved. In an age of electricity, we have forgotten the connection between light and danger, and I think that we need to remember it as we consider Jesus using the metaphor of I am the light of the world. But we aren’t completely devoid of opportunities to remember the link between light and danger. If you’ve ever attended a Christmas Eve candlelight service with a small child, it just calls to mind all of the safety issues associated with open flame and tiny people. I now need to tell you a story. I need to be vulnerable about one of my own experiences like this. It is a story about my stepmother, and I tell it with her permission, but when I told her that I was going to use it, she said, You have to tell it the right way, and you have to include the details I want you to include. My stepmother’s birthday is December 26 I can’t imagine a more inconvenient date to be born on, for those who love you, she has been my stepmother since I was 10 years old, and around the age of 12 or 13, I began to be aware that as the only girl among the siblings, the duty fell to me to make sure that we observed her birthday in some form. She had rules around observing her birthday because she didn’t want it to be a Christmas add on, so you couldn’t wrap her gifts in Christmas paper. You couldn’t like have a Christmas tree on her cake. But here’s the thing, we lousy children had not managed to produce a cake for her in the entire sum of her relationship with my father. And so finally, we pulled it together and got her a birthday cake. We were like this year. We have been terrible in the past. This year we will triumph. So we purchased a fabulous grocery store cake at great expense, filled it full of candles and took it into the living room to give it to her. We presented it to her, fully lit, and as we began to sing, she began to blow out the candles. A detail I have forgotten to mention is that the candles on the cake, because we thought ourselves hysterical, were the ones that would relight after you blew them out on one side. Also another important detail. It was the 80s, we had a big commitment to final net and big hair in the great nation of Texas. So my stepmother, overjoyed that her ungrateful children have finally produced some recognition of her birthday, blows the candles out on the left hand side of the cake and continues to blow and as she reaches the right hand side, we all watch the left hand side of her hair ignite into flames. It was awkward, and all I remember is one of us saying, oh, Debbie, your hair is on fire, at which point she took the only cake she had ever received from us, chunked it into the Christmas tree and began patting out her hair as quickly as she could. Have you ever smelled burning hair?

Jen Wilkin
Well, as part of the big birthday celebration, we were going to take her to dinner at a local establishment called the bar L grill and. The bar L grill is a ribs joint in my hometown of Wichita Falls, Texas, and I just all I have to say is, apparently there aren’t that many places open the day after Christmas. Okay, but we were doing our best. It’s actually a very firm, complementarian organization. Over the men’s restroom, they have a hunting dog pointing, and it says pointers. And over the women’s restroom, they have a hunting dog sitting and it says setters. This is the caliber of restaurant to which we were taking. My stepmother recently ignited on fire. This is the part she demanded, I tell you, we made her roll down the passenger window and hang her head out the whole way there.

Jen Wilkin
Suffice it to say that the colorful phrase running around like your hair is on fire, has always really hit a chord for me. Ever since that day, dangerous light, modern civilization has forgotten to associate the idea of light with danger. There’s light, but it’s light that must be cared for with great respect. And I think dangerous light is an excellent descriptor for the metaphor that’s presented to us in Scripture. Think about the words that Jesus says, I am the light of the world. Well, he’s choosing this metaphor on purpose, because even in the Gospel of John, this is not the first mention of light that we have had. You probably know how the Gospel of John opens. It opens where the in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God. The Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him. Without Him was not anything made. That was made in Him was life, and that life was what the light of men, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And then we hear about John the Baptist. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light, the true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. Did you notice that in the opening lines of John, we have both the image of light and the idea of witness introduced, which we see revisited. In the passage that we stood and read together, Jesus says that the father bears witness to him as the light of the world, but we see also that there will be others who bear witness to him as the light of the world. The idea of witness bearing figures very heavily into the conversation. But then we have another place where light comes up in the Gospel of John. Only a few chapters later, everybody know John 316 everybody know John 317 Do you know what happens after those let’s find out Jesus is talking to Nicodemus. That’s the context for the verses that everybody knows. And he’s been talking to Nicodemus about what it means to enter the kingdom of heaven. And then when we get to verse 18, he says this in chapter three, whoever believes in God is not condemned. Whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God. So Jesus tells Nicodemus, there are people who understand that when God so loved the world, he sent his only son, and that was a light coming into the world. And they come to the light. But there are others who hide from the light because they don’t want their evil deeds exposed. We begin to see some of the roles that light plays in the natural world. It does expose what is hidden in darkness, but people respond differently to that exposure. Some of them run toward the light, and others try to retreat into the darkness, just as we see in the natural world, where, if you turn over a stone that’s been sitting too long in one place in your garden, and there’s all those nasty critters underneath, what do they do? Or they’re like, Oh, finally, Someone move that rock. No. What do they do? They try to burrow into the darkness again as quickly as they can apparently, this is a picture of human nature that we should pay attention to. So after these two first mentions that Jesus is already that John has already made about the use of light, Jesus already introducing the idea to Nicodemus in a one on one conversation. Now we’re going to see Jesus speak about this. Us in a broader context. We saw that Jesus was teaching in the temple, and the context for his comments about being the light of the world actually falls either within the Feast of Tabernacles or immediately after the Feast of Tabernacles has happened. Most scholars would say that this is something that is included in the narrative that we hear when he’s teaching in the temple during the Feast of Tabernacles. Feast of Tabernacles, everybody’s favorite feast, right? You all love it. You talk about it constantly. The Feast of Tabernacles, also known as the Feast of Booths, is the seventh of the seven instituted feasts in the Old Testament, and the Feast of Tabernacles, or booths, or as is called in the Hebrew Sukkot. Yes, I practiced that before I said it was, was seven days in length, and it was one of the feasts for which all Israelite males made pilgrimage to Jerusalem. And they built little buildings out of branches, little tabernacles in which they dwelt during the whole course of the feast. The purpose of the Feast of Tabernacles was to remind the Israelites of their time in the wilderness. It was to remind them of the time where God supplied for them the Bread of Heaven and the water of life, and also led them by his presence. And how did he lead Israel by his presence in the wilderness, by a pillar of fire and smoke, dangerous light. But when God leads Israel by a pillar of fire in the wilderness, the sign is actually not a new one. You probably know that in Genesis, one, one, at the very beginning of the Bible, we have the introduction of what the world is like, and it is covered in what darkness. Darkness is, in fact, the first problem that is solved in the Bible. When God speaks, let there be light, the idea of God and light is inseparable, and it begins at the beginning, and then it’s not very long before we get the Abrahamic covenant, where Abraham gets knocked out cold. You remember that scene? It’s like here, Abraham, here’s how much I need you to be a part of this process. You just be knocked out cold, and I’ll handle the rest. Beautiful picture of our salvation, and then passing between the parted animal flesh. What do we see? A torch and a smoking fire pot. There it is again, fire, dangerous light passing between the flesh. And then we jump forward to Exodus, and we see that Moses is on a mountainside, and all of a sudden, he looks over and what does he see? A bush that is burning but is not consumed, flame, smoke, dangerous fire. Well, we hear the I am statements for the first time when we see this scene, God declares himself to be I am. And Moses response is, you know exactly what you and I would do. He’s like, wow, if this is who you are and this is what you want me to do, go into Egypt. When do we leave? Like, I mean, you’ve audibly spoken to me. That’s what we all want in this room, right? So he’s like, let’s go. Except that’s not what happens at all, is it? No. God says, I am. And in a series of exchanges, Moses responds to God’s declaration of I am with a self conscious who am I? That I should go into Egypt and do this thing? God says, Well, I will be with you. He reestablishes the I Am. When Moses says, No, but who am I? I can’t speak right? I will go with you. You know, God keeps returning himself to the center of the narrative. And then we find out in Exodus four after the scene has played on for quite a while and five times Moses has waffled around, that God suddenly becomes a burning bush to be contended with, because in Exodus chapter four, we read that God’s anger was kindled against Moses. Do you hear it? So like picture you have gas logs in your home. It’s another fake way to have light that’s super easy, if you ever like, hit that starter too quickly, and it just goes whoosh. I picture the burning bush just kind of like getting really huge on him, because God is getting tired of him toying with matters. But it’s light, but at the same time, it’s dangerous light to be treated with reverence. And then we come to Sinai just a few chapters later, and the people of God, now called out of slavery, come to the foot of a mountain, which happens to be the same mountain where Moses saw the burning bush. And they don’t know what’s coming, but Moses knows what’s coming. Like I wonder, did Moses think? And then they’re going to see the bush, and then they’re really good, because the bush is going to talk to them. And if the Bush gave me a talking to you, man, they’ve. Or watch out. And they get to the foot of Mount Sinai, and the whole mountain is ablaze, fire and smoke, dangerous light. And then what happens? The presence of God goes with his people through the years, in the wilderness and in the tabernacle, the pillar of smoke and fire comes to dwell on top of the Holy of Holies. Every time they make camp, and every time they strike camp, it goes before them. And I, you know, I really had to give some thought to this, because think about what the Sinai desert is like I’ve talked many times about my abject hatred of camping, and one of the things that I don’t like about it is the dark part.

Jen Wilkin
But we live in places where there’s lots of light pollution. It’s very rare that we’re somewhere where it’s truly dark. If you want to go see the stars somewhere at night. Really clearly, if you’re a stargazer, you go and look for a dark sky location somewhere where there isn’t light pollution. How much light pollution Do you think there was in the Sinai desert? None. And yet, Israel has a pillar of fire blazing in the middle of their camp. I’m sorry if you are Israel’s enemies, and you’re anywhere in the area, think about that the manifest presence of God, dangerous light safety for Israel, a fearsome sight for anyone who might dare to try to come near and take advantage under cover of Darkness, of the children of God, not only that, but like it would give them the ability to travel at night if they needed to. It’s like a headlamp. It’s almost like a lamp to their feet and a light to their path, dangerous fire, dangerous light. And then we get to the temple once the temple has been constructed. And once again, in both the tabernacle and the temple, there are scenes at their dedication, where, when the manifest presence of God descends on that building, in smoke and fire, that the presence fills the building, the structure to the extent that the priest can’t go in and minister. It’s not safe. Can’t go in there yet, wait till it dies down dangerous light, and then we find on the other side of the four years of wandering in the wilderness, as the children of God are preparing to go into the land of Canaan. Guess what they do? They grumble. Who saw that coming? No one. Oh, we can make fun of them because we bear nothing in common with them. They grumble against God, and it’s around the matter of daily bread. They’re like, we don’t think he’s going to take care of us. And then in chapter 11 of numbers, in verse one through three, it says, and the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and when the Lord heard it, his anger was, can you guess, kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp. Then the people cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down. So the name of that place was called tabera, because the fire of the Lord burned among them, their mediator intercedes for them, and the fire, the dangerous light, subdues you’re probably familiar with the image in Isaiah chapter six, where Isaiah says that he sees the Lord high and lifted up and the train of his robe fills the temple. And then there’s these angels, these angelic creatures who have to shield their eyes from the dangerous light. Just give that a minute to sink in. Angels are sinless beings. A pure, sinless being has to shield itself from the manifest glory of God in His presence. And then we find that Isaiah two has a reaction, it says in verse four of Isaiah six, and the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. There it is. It’s the temple of the Lord filled with the presence of the LORD, and his response is not and I said, hallelujah, let me just snuggle on up. What does he say? And I said, Whoa, is me, for I am lost. I’m a man of unclean lips, the dangerous light, the smoke filled dangerous light shows him things about himself that he did not see before, and then a coal was taken from the altar and applied to his lips, and he is purified this dangerous light that can strike down the ungodly. He can purify those who call upon the name of the Lord in Ezekiel, chapter nine and 10, the glory of the Lord, the smoke and the fire that has rested on the temple departs from the temple as God declares judgment on his own people and sends them into Babylonian exile. The manifest presence of God, the dangerous, glorious light that has dwelt in Israel’s midst, both to lead them and to inspire their worship, lifts from the temple and does not return, not even after Nehemiah rebuilds the temple, when the exile is ended, the glory of the Lord does not descend again on the temple, and Israel is plunged into shadow. 400 years of darkness and silence ensue and we’re left wondering, How can this be? Because Isaiah, 49 six says The Lord says to his people, I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach the end of the earth. Had Israel become this? There, they had the manifest presence of God in their midst. They were to carry that light to the nations. And instead, what had they done? Turned to idols. Run after other gods, as we’ll see in a minute, worship lesser lights. And we’re left asking, What will become of God’s promise? How will the nations see this light? It appears to be quenched. And then we find ourselves in Luke chapter two, and some shepherds are out in a field. And in verse eight, it says, in the same region, they were keeping watch over their flock by night. You know, the Lord didn’t have to announce this to them in the night time, but here we see, once again, the work that we saw in the created account, let there be light, says in verse nine, and an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great joy. No, what does it say? They were filled with great fear. They know dangerous light when they see it. But what does the angel say? Fear not. Fear not. Because unto us, a child is born, we see the fulfillment of Isaiah nine, two, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them, a light has shone. And the baby in the cradle, the incarnation is the very light of the world. So I want to return you for a moment to the Feast of Tabernacles. I want you to know a little bit more about it, because part of the feast of the tabernacles involved a ceremony called the illumination of the temple ceremony. And in the illumination of the temple ceremony, this is it was a rabbinic tradition that developed after the laws were given in the Old Testament for the feast days. And so they’re sort of like add on things. They’re not in the Bible, but they’re things that were practiced year after year as additional ways to mark this particular feast and in the illumination of the temple ceremony, which is found in the Mishnah, this requirement was set forth that each night of the feast, four giant lampstands or menorah were lit in the temple of the court of women, four giant lampstands were set ablaze every night. That Temple stands on a hill, and it was said that the light could be seen all the way to Galilee. Why? Why have a ceremony like that? It’s a simulation of the Shekinah, glory of God. Imagine these, temp these, these menorah are sometimes reported to have been 70 feet high. Imagine how much light, how much smoke would have been given off by the oil in the lamps. The temple would have been filled with light and smoke, very much the way that was in the collective memory of the children of Israel. But what was not there, the manifest presence of God, absence since the glory departed the temple in exile and never returning after the rebuilding of the temple by Nehemiah. It’s just a show. It’s just put on to recall a memory of something that never returned. And it is in this setting. It is at this moment that Jesus stands and announces, I am the light of the world. You You are the Pharisees are thinking, Yeah, I am the light of the world. Standing in the temple courts the manifest presence of God announces his presence. I am the Shekinah glory. It’s me. I am the light of the world. Or to put it, as the author of Hebrews does,

Jen Wilkin
he is the radiance of the glory of God. Notice what he says. I mean, just imagine how it hits the ears of his listeners. There can be no mistake that he’s making a claim to be God I am. He says, I am the light of the world. The I Am statement gives it away immediately. Then he says, I am the light of what the world, the cosmos, this created order which is broken and was cast into darkness and has been waiting for light to dawn. I am the light. It’s me. Let me change the emphasis just a little bit more. I am the light of the world. Notice that he does not say I am a light of the world. You know the history of Israel’s idolatry is one of worshiping lesser lights. You think about the way that the Genesis Creation account is worded, and what are we told? We’re told that light is created on the first day, and then later we hear that the luminary, luminaries are created, but he doesn’t name them. He says, the one to rule the day and the one to rule the night, and also the stars. He doesn’t name them because he doesn’t want to give honor to them. He wants to show that they’re created by God, to serve God and to serve Israel, to be able to mark the passing of the seasons. Why the distinction. Because in Egypt, guess who they worshiped the sun, the moon and the stars. In Canaan, guess who they worshiped the sun, the moon and the stars. And when Israel stumbles into the idolatry of the people who surround her, who will they worship the sun, the moon and the stars, lesser lights. Have you heard of asterisk? Her name means star. Of course, they worship these lesser lights. These were the means by which they knew they would have daily bread if they pleased the gods who maintained the calendar that made sure that the crops grew and the rains came in, then they would have daily bread. And so worship to these lesser gods was essentially praying to them, Give us this day our daily bread, lesser lights. Once again, I just say, What is the matter with Israel? Why can’t they pull it together? How about us with our lesser lights when you are sitting in bed at night, scrolling your phone in the dim light that hits your face. Think of this moment. Lesser lights when we go to influencers on social media and they’re like, You know what? You need collagen for your face, and you need to take a vitamin D supplement. And girl, if you do that, you’re going to be eternally young, and we’re like wisdom. Why? Because they just told you what you wanted to hear. How many of the voices that we listen to and ascribe glory to are just bending something slightly and telling us something that we were already looking to hear. Do you know who did that? The original darkness Bringer back in Genesis chapter three, some truth, and then a little bit of appeal to your pride, and then falsehood sprinkled in to drag you off the path. Lesser lights. We love lesser lights. We will set her settle for the lesser lights of the kingdoms of this world, instead of the great and glorious light of the kingdom of heaven, we will worship political figures. We will worship church leaders. Lord, help us. We place people on thrones on a daily basis. There’s only one seated on the throne. I am the light of the world. I am the pure light that is true and shows truth in all situations. Think about Instagram filters. As long as we’re just slapping ourselves around on social media, what does. The Instagram filter. Do for you, it puts you in a better what light. How many of you have taken a selfie with some friends while you were here and you’re like, No, no. Turn a little bit. Turn a little bit. Hold that thing up higher. When people hold it down here, I’m like, What are you trying to do? Man, yeah, nobody needs that for me. We all know we know how to cast ourselves in a favorable light, but there’s a reason that you keep tweezers in your car, because the light in your car is telling no lies you God.

Jen Wilkin
Jesus is the true light in his words and in his deeds, he showed us what it is to be fully human. This is what it means, not that. This is why God is worthy of your worship, because these are all lesser lights. They were created by Him to serve you, and instead, you are serving them. And it’s at the death of Christ that we see darkness cover the face of the earth. And then he’s raised on the third day, the light of the world emerges from a tomb. And then we find at the beginning of Acts where he’s addressing his apostles before he leaves, and they’re gazing up into heaven, right? And he’s charged them with what he wants them to do. Have you ever gazed up into heaven? Did anybody have the full Eclipse come through their neighborhood recently and you had to wear those special glasses? And it turned out some of the glasses were too cheap and didn’t actually work. That’s fine. You’ll probably recover your sight at some point. When you gaze up into heaven, what happens? You are blinded. He ascends into a blinding light, and they don’t see him again. Where has the light of the world gone? What’s supposed to happen now I want to skip forward just a little bit. I want to skip forward to Revelation so we can see how it all ends, so that I can just give you the spoiler alert, and you can exhale just a little bit. But just as we saw that the first problem remedied in Genesis was the problem of darkness, so we see the last problem remedied in Revelation is also the problem of darkness. Chapter 21 verse 22 through 25 and I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb, and the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there. Now, hang on, don’t miss it. Why is there no sun and moon? For those of you who love sunsets and sunrises, and you’re sad right now, why are they not there. Symbolically speaking, no one will receive glory due to God, but God alone, no lesser lights in the New Jerusalem, verse 22 chapter 22 verse five, and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. He will be full light, no darkness in the New Jerusalem. But did you catch then in the New Jerusalem, the light has gone out to the nations. The promise made to Israel seems to have come to pass. I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. Well, I don’t know about you, but I would love for Jesus to return and just get to the whole light. Problem solved, but I don’t know when that’s going to happen. What am I supposed to do until then? Well, for that, we need Pentecost. Do you remember what happens at Pentecost? Jesus is just ascended to the right hand of God, the Father, and they’re praying, and all of a sudden something descends on the heads of all of them. What is it? Oh, that’s right. Tongues of fire, dangerous light, the manifest presence of God in us, I confess to you that I never been able to think about this image without remembering my stepmother’s birthday, the smoke and the fire of the burning bush of Sinai of the wilderness, wandering of the tabernacle and the temple now indwelling the people of God, each of us tiny Tabernacles. You know what the problem was with the tabernacle and the temple, and God even said it when the idea came up in. First place. He says, I want to be able to move around. You build that temple. That temple is only in one spot. And so Jesus, the true temple, predicts the destruction of the literal temple, and re establishes it in himself and in his church. You know what’s great about Pentecost is, all of a sudden you have 1000s, no at this point, millions, of tiny, mobile tabernacles that can carry the light of life to the ends of the earth. Do you hear the final words of Jesus at the ascension? He says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my What witnesses? There it is again, the theme of witnesses to the ends of the earth. And here’s the thing, those who witness the light in Christ and are changed by it will bear witness to the light. What Pentecost is showing us is what Jesus had predicted in Matthew chapter five. Do you remember what he said there, looking at his disciples on a hillside? He said, You are the light of the world city. Said, on a hill cannot be hidden. What does that sound like? Sounds a lot to me like the Feast of Tabernacles city on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house in the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father, who is in heaven. Okay, a couple of things here. I hope you’re humming a song in your head. We’re going to get to that in just a second, so that they may see your good works. Now, Frederick Dale Bruner, who’s one of my favorite commentators, translates this with the emphasis that we find in the Greek so that they may see your kind of good works and give glory to your Father, who is in heaven. I think that’s really interesting. In other words, not the kind of good works that the Pharisees that the teachers of the law have been demonstrating and outward obedience to give glory to whom themselves they want the light they want to be lesser lights. No, instead, what is he saying that they may see your kind of good works. Guess what their kind of good works are going to be. Jesus’ kind of good works, the kind of good works that he lived a perfect life to show us. This is what you were made for. This is what you were created for back in the garden. This is the way you were supposed to live, the way that I’m going to live, sinless, never breaking the will of God. Jesus shows us the way, a lamp to our feet, a light to our path. He embodies something in his obedience that is important for us, and he charges us to do the same. It’s your kind of good works, the kind that give glory to your Father in heaven. They’re based in the right motive. You’re doing them for the right reason, and they’re also the thing that is right in letter. It is both spirit and letter of the law operating together in a way that is like a light in the darkness, that is like a city on a hill. But did you notice that a city on a hill cannot be hidden? You know, we sing that song. What do we teach children This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. Listen. I love the song, but I also kind of hate it. I think we need to change it. What a terrible burden to tell a child, or to tell anyone in this room that it’s just you holding up your tiny little candle, hoping it all works out. Do you know what we forget when we teach this passage? We forget the Texas version of the Bible, and I would like to remind you of it at this time. You know that the vast majority of the times that your Bible uses the word you in the New Testament, that it’s actually you plural and not you singular, as we like to say in the great nation of Texas, it’s all y’all, y’all are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp, put it under a basket, but put it on a stand in the same way, let y’all light shine before others so that they may see y’all’s good works and give glory to your Father, who is in heaven. You don’t have to do it alone. That’s what that New Year’s that Christmas Eve service is for, where the candles are lit on one side of the room and then it spreads to the other side of the room. You’re supposed to be reminded, I’m not in this alone, and even though my little candle doesn’t light the room up very much, if we all did our kind of good works, think how the world would be impacted around us. So I propose that we change the song. Are you willing to do this with me? These little lights of ours, we’re going to shine like stars. You have to say ours, not ours. Want to try it? These little lights of ours, we’re going to shine like stars. Shine like stars. Stars shine like stars shine like stars. Second Corinthians, 46 for God, who said, let the light shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Do you think you can push back the darkness alone? Don’t kid yourself. You’re not even supposed to. But you know what? Get you some weird Christian friends who are committed to living alien and strange. Get out there. What are you supposed to do between Christ’s first advent and his second advent, when he cracks open the sky in a blinding light, once again, you’re supposed to live like He did,

Jen Wilkin
like you’re a blaze, running around like your hair is on fire, glory of God all over you. Does anyone experience you as the bearer of dangerous light. Does your presence in a group cause people to self examine? Do they sense the truth that hovers about you like the smoke of the flames that ignite the manifest glory of God? Is your presence in a room discernibly different from the world around you? And a word to the unbelievers, if you’re here today and you have not trusted in Christ, do you think that you can remain hidden in darkness before the God who speaks light into darkness come into the light, step into His marvelous light. You think it will go badly for you, but there is freedom there, because Christ, the glory of God, has gone before you in your place. He has mediated the dangerous Light of God on your behalf, so that it can indwell you and you hear the pronouncement, Fear not. We live in dark times. We do not know when the Lord will return, but until he does, I pray that we would run around with our hair on fire tiny tabernacles displaying the glory of God, individually and collectively, I say, Let there be dangerous light once again in the temple of God, it is us like the temple during the Feast of Tabernacles, the church is ablaze, like a city on a hill, visible to A World plunged in darkness. There is a popular saying, it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. I fear that too many of us are busy cursing the darkness, proclaiming how terrible things are around us, and we have forgotten that we have been given a light that is precious not to us just alone because of what it means for our own well being, but that a lost and dying world desperately needs to see. I look out among this room, and I see the church ablaze with the glory of God. You will finish this conference, and you will not be the same as when you got here, because the light in you will have been fanned into a flame. Believer. Carry it to your church, to your community, to everyone you have influence with you. Show them what it means to glorify God. No lesser lights will do. This is my prayer for us. Will you pray with me, Heavenly Father? We thank You that You gave us in Christ the very light of the world, not merely in how he named himself, but in how he conducted himself. He showed himself, indeed to be the light of life, to be the light of truth. And we ask Father that that light would shine continually on us, that we would self examine, that we would own any sin that has still lurked in darkness, and that his purifying fire would remove it from us, that we might be found pure and blameless in the day of the Lord. And we pray Lord for a world around us in darkness, longing for light that we would show them, the true light of the world in our speech and in our words, everywhere we go, until the day we see darkness vanished once and for all, we ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.