The evenings are drawing in, and the mornings are not much better! How do you cope with all the darkness? I’m not sure of anyone who prefers the dark evenings to the long summer light ones. How strange that at this time of year (halloween), people will in some strange way celebrate darkness instead of the light.
Light is important in the Bible, it’s the first thing God created! In Exodus, God led his people in a pillar of fire. Israel were meant to be a light to the nations, people were meant to look at Israel and say –they must follow a great God! But instead Israel were attracted by the surrounding nations and
became like them. Like a chameleon, they blended in, there was nothing different about them. And so as we see in our Ezekiel reading, God handed them over to the surrounding nations, to Assyria and to Babylon.
In our reading from John 8, Jesus stands up at the feast of tabernacles, when there were enormous crowds, and declares himself to be the light of the world! What an incredible thing to say. Can you imagine someone standing up at the ploughing championship and declaring this. We’d think they were mad! Well what about Jesus? What does he mean?
At the feast of tabernacles, there were 4 huge golden lamps that were lit, and they illuminated the entire city. The lamps reminded them of how God had led them by the pillar of fire out of Egypt and in the wilderness. Now as the lamps are put out at the end of the festival, Jesus says He’s the light not just for Israel, but for the world! Israel was meant to be a light for the nations, but they had failed. Now Jesus says, He is the light.
The religious leaders don’t like what Jesus says, and Jesus tells them some uncomfortable truths – they don’t know God (John 8:19). If the religious leaders don’t know God, what hope is there for anyone? Well, look at Jesus wonderful words in John 8:12 “whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
The religious leaders may have rejected Jesus, but whoever (from any nation) follows Jesus will not walk in darkness. The only way to die in sin is to reject Jesus as the light of the world, thinking you don’t need him, to refuse to follow him.
What does it mean to follow him? Well a bit like the people of Israel following the pillar of first, it involves total commitment, when the pillar moved, they packed up and
followed! Following Jesus is not half-hearted, if He is the light of the world, we need to follow Him with all of our hearts.
But you’ll never do it perfectly! There’ll be times we lose our temper at home, when we blow it at school, when we fail morally. And we will want to repent of those times, but the relief from this passage is that we are not the light of the world, yes we are to be mini-lights, but Jesus is the light
of the world. The incredible truth is that He allowed his light to be extinguished for a time (at the cross), so that we never have to be, so that we never have to walk in darkness.
Jesus is the light of the world, will you follow Him today? Jesus tells us that if we refuse Him, we will die in our sins (v24), but if we trust Him we will have the light of life.
Light and Momentary Troubles 
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