The Victorious Light
A mechanic, an electrician, a chemist, and a computer guy were driving down the road one day when the car broke down. The mechanic said, “I think a rod broke.”
The chemist said, “There’s no combustion, so it’s not getting enough gas.”
The electrician said, “Obviously there’s a problem with the electrical system.”
The computer guy said, “I think we should all get out of the car and then get back in.”
Have you ever felt like your life is like that broken down car? Something’s definitely wrong, and everybody’s trying to tell you how to fix it? And nothing is working?
If you feel that way about your life, you’re definitely not alone, because it’s not just your life that needs fixing; it’s the whole world that needs fixing. Since the day of Adam and Eve, when they both took a bite out of the apple, and then went and hid in the bushes, human beings have had a problem that needed to be fixed. We call it sin.
Never have we been more aware of that problem than we are today. From the struggle in our own soul, to family problems to drugs and alcohol abuse to corporate fraud to the World Trade Center attacks and the war in the Middle East, human nature is bent in the direction of sin and death and needs to be straightened out.
But how to do it? Like the story of the four guys in the broken down car, everybody has an idea of how to fix what’s wrong with the world and with our souls. Will military action fix it? How about social action programs that help poor people. Can we do it by learning to manage our anger, set healthy boundaries, get assertive, learn to express our feelings. . . . ? Maybe hypnotism would work. There was a hypnotist who used to advertise on late-night TV. He promised to deliver “prosperity, passion, and power” to any one who would buy his tapes (three easy installments of $39.95). (NIV commentary, in loc)
It does seem clear that the world is looking for both a diagnosis and a cure for what ails it. But here’s the irony. “The very medicine that can cure the human condition is rejected.” (NIV commentary, in loc) This is what John tells us in the first chapter of his Gospel. John tells us that Jesus—the Word made flesh—came into a world that desperately needed help. He came as light in the darkness. But even his own people—the people you would think would be ecstatic to see him, rejected him. That’s what happened on Good Friday. The One who had the power to cure the sickness of the soul was killed by some of the very people he came to save.
That’s not a news flash. We know this. But we need to think about why it happened and what it has to do with us on this Easter Sunday. Here’s something that I read this week: “It is naïve to think that the world is eagerly waiting for some disclosure from heaven. Such a disclosure is welcome if it comes in the world’s terms, if it is a message that affirms the systems of the world, upholding the personal aggrandizement of power and the prowess of human capacity. But if it names the darkness for what it is, if it describes sin for what it does, if it identifies unbelief in its many forms, then the Word will experience sheer antagonism. If the Creator of the world now calls for dominion as its Creator and Lord, the world will have no part.” (ibid.)
In other words, people, for the most part, want a religion that makes them feel better, but not a God who will transform them. Rather than fixing what’s really wrong with themselves and the world, they want a quick fix. I think most of us can relate: we want to get rid of the little sins that trouble us, but it’s tough to address the deeper issue—the fact that we are sinners. Sin is not just a series of bad choices or wrong choices. It’s a “state of being from which bad choices continually come.” (ibid.) Because of that sin nature, the world rejects the Truth of God and replaces it with some nicer more palatable things. Like “self help.”
Ed and I have a library full of self-help books. And we often recommend them. But self-help books, by themselves, are worthless. They will not fix what is wrong at the heart. Because what’s wrong at the heart has to do with our relationship with God. That’s what was desperately wounded when Adam and Eve sinned. And it cannot be fixed by human hands.
We try. The secular world tries to fix it by changing behaviors, creating programs and plans and projects. The religious world tries to fix it by being pious.
But it can only be fixed by the initiative and power of God. By the light that shines in the darkness. In Jesus Christ, God comes to us. God comes into the world in human flesh, with truth and grace, ready to transform any one who will receive Jesus, the light of the world.
Jesus came to the world as light in the darkness. But those who prefer to remain in darkness, reject him. This is always true. We know this in our own lives in both small and large ways. You’re comfortable in your bed, and as the light begins to creep into your bedroom, you pull the covers over your head so you can pretend it’s not morning. “Let me sleep!” The same thing happens when someone threatens to expose the darkness of your soul. The natural tendency is to want to reject that message, reject that person. “I don’t want to go there.”
The darkness in the world, the darkness in our own soul, will always resist, always try to reject the truth. But here is the good news of Easter. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.
There was a church that needed to expand its parking lot. So they bought the house next door. For more years than anyone could remember, a bed of daffodils in the front yard had bloomed to welcome each new spring. The construction company tore down the house, leveled the ground, and covered it over with eight inches of black asphalt. They took a huge roller and compacted the asphalt down to a four-inch-thick layer of rock hard pavement. The parking lot was great, and everyone was happy. They forgot about the old house and its garden. Until spring. The first thing they noticed was that the asphalt was cracking in one corner of the parking lot. Then, just in time for Easter, those forgotten daffodils burst forth, right up through the pavement.
In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.
Light is stronger than darkness. Always. Life is stronger than death. Always. Death could not hold Jesus in the tomb. Could not! Will not! And if we receive him, the darkness in our own soul will be banished and he will give us resurrection life. Guaranteed. Now, I don’t mean by that, that it will be a quick fix. But it will happen. Jesus will win, every time. Life and health and wholeness will get the last word. Every time.
What’s my proof? The empty tomb.
Many of the symbols of Easter are also symbols of spring. Flowers, eggs, little bunnies and chicks. These speak of life and renewal and in that sense they are positive reminders of what God has done for us, but they are incapable of communicating the real power of the resurrection. Resurrection is life that goes against the grain of nature. It is life that emerges where no life should be. Out of the depths of death itself. It is a life that can only be attributed to the power and grace and love of God.
It’s not possible to go back and forensically prove that Jesus rose from the dead. But there is some very powerful proof that it was genuine. That proof was in the disciples themselves. On Easter morning when they went to the tomb, they expected nothing but death to meet them there. When they saw the empty tomb, they feared that someone had taken the body. There is no logical explanation why they would have concocted a story that they knew was untrue, and then risked their lives for a story that they did not believe themselves. No, the only explanation for the renewed spirit of the disciples and the birth of the early church is that Jesus truly rose from the dead, and that resurrection changed these people.
The light
shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.. .. .and to all who
received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.
I am told that in the Ukraine, when people exchange Easter cards, many of those cards have pictures of fenced flower gardens. The one thing that is the same on each card is that the gate to the garden is open. That symbolizes what Jesus has done. He has opened the door to life. A door that no none can shut.
Did you ever wonder why the stone was rolled away from the entrance to the tomb? Was it so that Jesus could get out? No, it was so that the women could look in. Jesus didn’t need an open door; he could walk through the stone. But the women and the other disciples needed to see and understand what had happened.
So do we. My hope and prayer is that the stone has been rolled away for you today. As we have worshiped together and heard God’s word together, that you have peeked in and have seen the light. Jesus is alive, and that fact validates everything that he said about himself. He is the light of the world, the Son of God, the Messiah, the savior of the world, the way the truth and the life. As the darkness gathers around you and you look for solutions for your own life, look to Jesus. Let him shine his light into your life and dispel the darkness.