As we come to the word of God this morning, pray with me. Lord God, may the words of my mouth, the thoughts and reflections of all of our hearts be acceptable. And may we from this word, a living word, see the living Jesus. be comforted, but also challenged by it and Him. Amen. My text for this morning is found in the Gospel of John, in chapter eight. Familiar words of Jesus, verse 12, where Jesus says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. But I want to set those words in its context. And so I invite you to turn with me to John, both chapter seven and eight, and I'll be looking at and reading through some selections from there. Beginning with John chapter seven and verse one. After this, Jesus went about in Galilee, the northern regions, of course, of Palestine. He would not go about in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Jews feast of booths was at hand. And so his brothers, these are the physical brothers of Jesus, sons of Mary. So his brothers said to him, leave here, go to Judea. that your disciples also may see the works you're doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. And if you do these things, why don't you show yourself to the world? You almost think that they said these words facetiously because the next word said, for not even his brothers believed in him. Jesus said to them, my time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. You go up to the feast. I'm not going up to this feast for my time has not yet fully come. And after saying this, he remained in Galilee. But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, Then he also went up, not publicly, but in private. However, in the following verses, we know that when he got there to Jerusalem, began teaching, people believed some did, many didn't. Controversy arose above them. Verse 14 says about the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching with those kinds of results. In fact, in a number of places throughout this chapter and the next, it says that the Jews, and particularly this is the religious leadership of the Jews, sought to kill him. You have that in verse 19, and again in verse 30. Verse 32 of chapter 7 still, the Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, Jesus, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. Then down to verse 37, on the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture says, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Then John's comment, now this he said about the spirit. whom those who believed in him were to receive. Moving on to chapter eight, you'll notice that it begins in your Bibles with a bit of a heading that says the earliest manuscripts do not include these particular verses, this opening paragraph that's there. Some Bibles even have it in italics. There's controversy among scholars that say that this event really didn't take place. There are others who say it took place, but not here. And it's with those scholars that I tend to agree. And I think that while it didn't happen at this specific time and place, I'll say something about that in a few moments, John puts it here, inserts it here in his gospel, and it fits. And I'll show you why in a bit. Then we come to verse 12, the words of my text for this morning. 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. powerful, familiar, wonderful words of Jesus, but it's important for us, I think, to understand something of the context, and that's why I've looked at both of these chapters and have walked us through them, the context of these words of Jesus. Chapter seven says that the feast of the Jews, the Jewish feast of booths, was at hand about to take place. Now you need to know something about this feast or this festival of the booths, sometimes called the festival of tabernacles. The Jews had seven major feasts or festivals, really religious holidays throughout their year. And some of them lasted not simply for a day, but really for a whole week, seven days. There were four of them in the spring of the year and three of them in the fall of the year. And three of these seven religious festivals were held and celebrated together in the city of Jerusalem. They were the Passover, said in Aramaic or Hebrew, Pesach. There was Pentecost, Shavuot, and there was this one, the festival of booths, called Sukkot. The term, the Aramaic or the Hebrew word for booth was sukkah, and the plural is sukkot. the Feast of Booths. And Sukkot always took place in the fall of the year, generally around our month of October. And it had a double significance. On the one hand, it was historical, had historical significance or meaning to it, because it remembered the time when they left the slavery of Egypt and they traveled for those 40 some years throughout the wilderness, living in tents or in booths, if you will, on their way to the promised land. And during this festival, they would reflect on that time in their history. Secondly, however, it had an agricultural, if you will, significance. Because it came at the end of their time of harvest. It was really their Thanksgiving day. although it lasted for a whole week, for seven days. And it was literally, of all of the feasts of the Jews, it was literally the most festive, the most joyful of all of the feasts. And Jews came from all over to the city of Jerusalem. I mean, hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands. Josephus, one of the early Jewish historians, even said and estimated that there were a million or more. who had come to Jerusalem. And they built these tents or these booths, three-sided booths. They made them out of branches, whatever they could get a hold of, a bit of a roof over the top, a reminder to them, as I said, of the tents or the booths that they had in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. And there were literally thousands of these. that were suddenly built as they came to the city of Jerusalem for this festival, placed all over the city and in the surrounding area. They were all over the place. But the real celebration of Sukkot took place at the temple and in the courtyards of the temple. And it was packed. There were hundreds of thousands of people, it was said, in that temple precinct area. And the priests would perform the daily sacrifices, the morning one at nine o'clock in the morning, the evening or the afternoon one at three o'clock in the afternoon. And during this entire week, there were a number of other sacrifices that they performed as well because of the particular religious festival. Now back in Leviticus, Leviticus chapter 23, the verses 39 and 41, where this festival was initially prescribed by God, they were told to, and I quote, rejoice before the Lord for seven days. Celebrate this as a festival before the Lord your God for seven days each year. Now those two words, rejoice before the Lord, celebrate this festival. Rejoice and celebrate come from a root word that means literally to erupt. To erupt like a volcano, if you will. But erupt in praise to God, to Yahweh, praise Him, and they did. with branches of palm trees, willows that they plucked with branches from the citrus trees, and they waved them in their hands while they shouted or they chanted what was called the halal, which was Psalm 113 through 118 from the Old Testament. And they sang and they chanted this antiphonally from nine o'clock in the morning until three o'clock in the afternoon, later. And they did it antiphonally, but they didn't even wait for one group to say some of the words of the halal before the others simply joined in. They were so eager in their eruption of praise to Yahweh, to the Lord God. There was such a crescendo of praise, it was said, that they could be heard in the town of Bethlehem four to five miles away. Ray Vanderlaan, some of you may know him from his video biblical series, particularly focusing on Jewish events and things. Ray Vanderlaan said the Jews wouldn't understand our responsive readings. In fact, he took one of his Jewish friends with him to church one Sunday morning, and after hearing the response of reading, a bit mumbled by the congregation, his friend said to Ray, they should have served coffee before the service, rather than after, and caffeineed the monk. or just after that three o'clock sacrifice, there was what was called a water drawing ceremony, where the priest, usually the high priest, along with others, would go outside of the temple area, in fact, outside of the city of Jerusalem itself, to the pool of Siloam, where there was what was called living water. running out of a nearby spring. Now, living water simply meant water that wasn't stagnant, water that wasn't in a pool by itself, but rather it was water that was fresh, it was running, it was coming from a spring. And they would fill huge jars with this water, and they would come back while the people are still chanting and celebrating and erupting in praise to God, and they would pour all of this water out over on the altar. saturating it and the ground around it and so forth and so on. And among other things, it was really a prayer for for refreshing rains for the next harvest. But at that moment. as they poured out all of that living water, if you will. Jesus, from someplace in that crowded temple area, shouted the words, whoever believes, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture says, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. You can just imagine the uproar that started in that part of the crowded temple area when Jesus from their midst shouted those words. Well, as the day went on, dusk fell. There were four huge candlesticks, 70, 75 feet high, one on each side of the temple courtyard. And they were all topped with a huge menorah, an eight candlestick menorah, Jewish menorah. And these would be lit as dusk fell, got a little darker out. And they lit the place with brilliant light. as their celebration continued and was drawing toward a conclusion for that particular day. According to the Mishnah, a commentary on all things Jewish, there was no courtyard in Jerusalem that wasn't lit up with the light. And that was when Jesus said the words of our text. I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. The context was this festival, this religious feast, when Jesus talked about living water, when Jesus said, I am the light of the world. But what does it mean? What was its content, if you will? You know, we tend in reading and hearing the Bible and even these words of Jesus to just sort of read over them, receive them, think of them as information. But when Jesus spoke, really shouted those words in the midst of that temple crowd, it was like a bomb going off. Especially the first two words, I am. You see, these Jews were no dummies. They knew their scripture, especially the Torah, those first five books of the Old Testament. Every single one of them, boys and girls, had gone to synagogue school until they were 12 years old. And by that time, they had memorized the Torah. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Boys and girls, by the time you're 12 years old, you have to memorize that. These years, boys and girls did. Now as adults, they knew. It was the heart of their religion, the Torah. And at the heart of the Torah was God's revelation to Moses standing barefoot in front of that burning bush. And Moses, I think very, Timidly say, what's your name? And in Exodus 3 verse 14, God says, I am who I am, Yahweh. This is what you are to say to the Israelites. has sent me to you." That was the name by which the Jews knew God all the way through the Old Testament. And when Jesus spoke those words, I am, and we're told in John's gospel that he did it deliberately at least seven other times, six other times, the Jews heard him say, I am God. And to many of them, especially these religious authorities, that was absolute blasphemy. I mean, little wonder this whole passage, chapter seven and eight, the whole context of the festival is saturated with references to these authorities, the chief priests and the Pharisees wanting to arrest him and to kill him. He was guilty of the most heinous sin, referring to himself as God. And then he added, I am the light of the world. Now there's a number of aspects that are suggested by that image. Light of course, excuse me, light illumines or it reveals reality. It shows us what's there, what's really there. If you've ever been in a room, particularly a strange room at night, it's dark, the lights are off, you just don't know your way, you sort of grope, you sort of feel your way through that particular, but when you switch the light on, you can see, you can see what's there. Well, let me give you three things we see when Jesus says, I am the light. The first thing, And it underscores and accentuates what Jesus already said in the I am. And that's that we see God. We see God revealed in Jesus. Light often characterized the presence of God. In the Old Testament, that's what the cloud and the pillar of fire was all about. It was the symbol of God's presence in the midst of his people. Later on, when the tabernacle and the temple were finished, we're told that the glory of the Lord filled the place. A brilliant, a stupendous brilliance of light. In the New Testament, at least three of his disciples saw the transfiguration of Jesus, and they said that his face shone like the sun. His clothes became as white as light. And now Jesus says, I am the light. I'm that light. He reveals God. He enables us to see God. Something of a God is like. He who has seen me, he said, has seen the Father, has seen God. Someone said, Jesus Christ is God in focus. In him, we see God clearly, distinctly, sharply down to earth. What we know about God, we deduced from what we see in Jesus. I am that light. Secondly, the light of Jesus illumines and reveals ourselves. and the reality of our sin. Light not only reveals the beauty and the splendor of a thing, namely God himself, but light also shows up those things that are dirty and dusty. I mean, have you ever looked at a stream of sunshine coming through the window and you see all kinds of gross stuff floating around in it? Or you see the dirt on the window itself or the dust on the furniture? And so it is when Christ comes close to our lives. Which is why I believe John inserted that event of the woman taken in adultery and brought before Jesus. It fits here. I don't know what Jesus wrote on the ground, but they knew that he, Jesus, knew the deepest, darkest, devilish, demonic secrets of their lives. Jesus' presence, His light shone them up. And when Jesus said, let any of you who's without sin throw the first stone at her, they all sheepishly left, because they knew that He knew. And by the way, He knows and He shows us too, thoughts that shame us, things painful, painful to us. But as our Savior, he says, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. Says Paul in that great chapter, Romans 8, there is now no condemnation for those in the Messiah Jesus. Praise And then the third thing, the third thing, and this sort of seems to be the heart of what Jesus is saying, I am the light of the world. There's a lot of darkness in this world. There was then, there is now. There's power politics, there's factional squabbling, there's militant resolutions, there's hatred and terrorism and murder and more. It's a broken world and a broken society with broken homes and broken people. There's confusion and hypocrisy and pride and greed and self-centeredness and you add to the list. And Jesus breaks into that kind of a messy world and he says, there's something new now. There's a new king and there's a new kingdom. There's a new way of living and acting and behaving. There's a new community, a new way of relating to one another and to others in love and care and compassion. And I am demonstrating that kind of a life to you. He's the light of and to that kind of living. And whoever follows me, says Jesus, whoever believes in me, whoever clings to me, whoever walks with me, whoever leans on me, whoever goes with me, will walk in that light as well. And not in the darkness of the world. But Jesus said something more, not here, but in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5 and verse 14, a most amazing, astonishing, absolutely stupendous thing. He said, you are the light of the world. The exact same thing, the exact same words he said of himself. A continuation. In other words, we're not only his people, people who believe in him, people who belong to him, followers of him. We are, as someone put it, his own extended self. reflecting Jesus in our attitudes, in our actions. We are Jesus, if you will, in our relationship. We are Jesus to our children, to our spouse. We are Jesus at our work. to our workmates, to how we do our work. Jesus, in our classroom, to our students, to our teacher, to our fellow classmates. Jesus, in how we handle trial, in how we handle temptation, We are Jesus, the words we use and the words we don't. We are Jesus in our level of concern that we have for people in need, physically, emotionally, spiritually. an extension of Jesus. You are the light of the world, an embodiment of me, a continuation of what I've just said to you. I am the light of the world that others may see your good work, your life, your style of living and glorify the father in heaven. How? How is that possible? What Jesus said earlier in Sukkot, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture says, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. And remember John's comment, inspired by the spirit. Now this he said about the spirit, whom those who believe in him would receive. You see, Paul says in that Romans, I just finished teaching on the book of Romans, but in that chapter, the sixth chapter, Paul says, in the crucifixion of Christ, in Christ's death, we died to sin. We don't owe sin anything anymore. We keep paying its fake bills, sadly. Two chapters later, in chapter 8, he says that we're alive and we live by the enabling presence and power of the Holy Spirit. And so Paul would say we can begin to live the life that Jesus called us to. We have a new nature. We are not what we were. Sadly, All too often we settle for our weakness. We accommodate to our sinnership. We feel can't do anything about it. Some time ago I came across a pretty good illustration of that. It's sort of like training an elephant. Not talking about the Republican Party. But you get a little 200 pound elephant, baby elephant, And you put a wooden stake in the ground and you tie a little rope around the ankle of that little elephant. And that baby elephant will wear its ankle bloody by trying to pull against that rope. But it learns and it remembers. I'm tethered to the ground by the feel of that rope. And all it can do is walk around in a circle. But that 200-pound elephant is not the same creature as a 6,000 to 8,000-pound behemoth that it becomes. And yet all the trainer has to do is just keep that little rope around his leg, tethered to that stake in the ground. And the elephant thinks and remembers its past, its weakness, its failure to break from its confines, from its bounds. But that 8,000-pound elephant is a new creature. All it has to do is literally give that a bit of a tug, and that snakes out of the ground, and he's free to go where he wants. but it remembers. And sadly, often that's like us, it's like us in Christ. By His death on the cross, He's fully paid for all of our sins. He's defeated Satan's power. There is now no condemnation for those in the Messiah Jesus. In His resurrection, He's raised us to a new life, and He's given us the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, enabling us to begin to live it. But we remember our old sinful self and we're told again and again and again and again that you're a sinner. We're tied to the stake of total depravity and we forget. We forget who we are and what we are in Christ Jesus. We are the light of the world. Jesus said so. God help us to be who we are. Extensions of him who said, I am the light of the world. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Bless, oh God, your word. your word of comfort, your word of challenge, and able us to see him who said, I am the light of the world, to receive him and to live the challenge. You are the light of the world. In Jesus' name we pray it. Amen.