The Life-Light Blazes | John 1:1-5

Sermon Manuscript

Let’s pray together. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heart be pleasing to you O Lord our rock and our redeemer.   

Did y’all get a lot of goodies for Christmas? I brought some show and tell of a few things I got. First of all, Ellie picked out these pretty nail polish colors for me. We have a pink, a purple, and one that looks like funfetti icing.  

Phill got me this crochet tension ring and these neat stitch markers where you can write which row you’re on. I crochet amigurumi, which is making little toys, and it is so easy to lose count of which row you’re on. These were fabulous. 

And then my brother gave me something as well. Two coasters. Let me read them to you. The first one says “I’m sorry did I roll my eyes out loud?” And then our second one says “therapist: and what do we do when we are sad? Me: add to cart. Therapist: no”  

Does anyone else here tend to turn to retail therapy when you’re upset? It’s even more dangerous online because you can’t feel the money leaving your bank account but I promise you it will. Sometimes it feels like if we just buy something new it will make life better. It just seems like something new and shiny will make life better. But does that help? Does that thing help us process the negative emotions we’re feeling? Of course not. And yet so often we all go to retail therapy. And so this coaster is here to remind us that retail therapy is not really an effective form of therapy.  

I shared this coaster with you in particular because it’s so easy to want to fill the distress and challenges of our lives with things. We think the next thing will make us happy. We think something new might just fill that hole in our hearts. That hole in our hearts can look like a number of things. Perhaps it looks like addiction, perhaps a secret addiction. It can look like the hole left when a loved one passes away. It can feel like the hole of depression that you can’t seem to come out of. And whether it’s shopping or other problematic choices, too often we turn to self-destructive patterns rather than true self-care. But the truth is no thing or habit can fill that hole or brighten the darkness in our lives. Perhaps it’ll make things feel better for a little while, but it won’t solve whatever problem of the hole we’re trying to fill.  

Today we are still in the Christmas season and I know this passage from John 1 might seem like an odd one for Christmas. But this passage reminds us that though a new thing won’t change our lives, the birth of the newborn king will and has. So today as we talk through the first five verses of John, what I hope you hear is that Jesus’s birth is a new start. We are living in a world of darkness and evil. At times we experience those things from our own sin, or just from living in a fallen world, or possibly from the sin of another. But the birth of Jesus marks the first step to everything being made good and right again. The first few words intentionally sound like the first few words of Genesis. The first verse of Genesis says, “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” And the first verse of John says, "in the beginning was the Word.” This is very intentional writing. The birth of Jesus is like Genesis 2.0. When God made everything, it was right and good. Sin and darkness entered the world but now at Jesus birth we have Genesis 2.0 where Jesus will begin to vanquish the darkness and evil from sin and begin to recreate the world to make it good and right once more.  

To do this we’re going to study this passage. By the way, this is one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible. Not only is it deeply meaningful as we’ll discover, but it’s also beautiful poetry. The word “Word” is the Greek word logos. It already had a deep meaning, but John is using it here for Jesus. The Word is the will of God, the action of God, and now made flesh. And this Word is fully God. The Word, meaning Jesus the Son of God, is fully God. And the Father, who is being referenced here as just “God,” is also fully God. And yet they’re distinct. This is a foundational scripture for the development of the doctrine of the Trinity. It’s not that there’s more than one God, but that there’s a plurality within the one God. Then we learn that all things were made through the Word, Jesus. So anything that has life is alive because of Jesus.  

Do you follow me? I know this is heady stuff. We have the Logos who is the will and action of God, and is truly God Himself, now becomes a human. It’s fascinating that John uses this text to begin his Gospel instead of what we would call the Christmas story. John doesn’t start his story with the beginning of Jesus as a human, but with the beginning of humans made through Jesus.   

It’s as if John is saying that to start this Gospel story we need to go back further than the manger. We need to go to the beginning. When you read Genesis 1, there are several themes. One of those themes is that it was all good. And when God made mankind, it was very good. There was no disease, evil, or darkness except the beautiful darkness of a star-lit sky. It was good, and very good. And you know what happens from there. Mankind chooses selfishness over love for God. And then sin, evil, and darkness entered the world. And the world has been plagued by those evils ever since.   

What’s truly so mind-blowing about the Christmas story isn’t that God performed a miracle in a virgin birth, though that’s certainly exceptional too. What’s mind-blowing is that God chose to become one of us. The eternal Word who is Himself God, chose to breathe the air that was created through Him. He cried the tears of a baby as any other baby as cried. Jesus, the word of God Himself, had vulgar words and lies hurled at him as any of us have experienced and worse. Jesus, the light of the world, lived in this world filled with evil and darkness as all of us. But Jesus did not allow the darkness to consume Him. No. Jesus was a beacon of light in the darkness.   

You see how thick these first few verses of John are? They’re so beautiful and meaty. One of the commentaries I read said that the first 18 verses of John are deep enough for an elephant to swim and shallow enough for a baby to wade. They’re deep enough for scholars to break it down and study it for a lifetime, and shallow enough for a new Christian to be encouraged by it. Love this passage.   

Sometimes when I break down these meaty passages of scripture, I can get lost in the technicalities. When I get bogged down in the details instead of swimming in the sea of the text, I like to see what the Message has to say. The Message is a paraphrase by the late pastor Eugene Peterson. It’s not a text I recommend for true study, but it’s a great option for seeing how one pastor interprets different passages through a paraphrase. I love how Peterson paraphrases verse 3-5 in particular.   

“Everything was created through him;  

    nothing—not one thing!—  

    came into being without him.  

What came into existence was Life,  

    and the Life was Light to live by.  

The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;  

    the darkness couldn’t put it out.”  

Hear this bit again: “the Life was the Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out in the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.” Life-Light. I love how he blended together life and light in this one word for Jesus. The Life-Light. The one who gives us life and the one who lightens a world plagued by darkness.   

And did you notice the shift from past to present tense in both the translation and the paraphrase? When talking about creation, John uses the past tense; but when he speaks of his Life-Light blazing in the darkness, he switches to the present tense. Our creation through Jesus happened in the past, but Jesus’s Life-Light currently blazes in the darkness. This was just as true when John wrote it as it is now.  

We all have places that are dark. I mentioned a few earlier like addiction, loss, and sickness. Indeed, many of us are grieving from loss and sickness now. Sometimes the darkness of this world makes it seem like the light will go out. But it never will because the Life-Light came to be with us, light the darkness, and save us all from the darkness. And He did that through his very life. The darkness may be able to dim the light of the created, but it will never extinguish the light of the Creator. The creator is the Life-Light, our source of our life. And since He can never be extinguished, neither can we as followers of his light.   

That last phrase in the passage in the NRSV says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.” The word translated “overtake” is translated a different way in almost all the translations. It’s an ambiguous word, but it has two primary meanings. Either it could mean that the darkness did not understand the light on a level of comprehension, or it could mean that the darkness could not extinguish the light on a level of conflict. Though there’s an argument to be made that John may have intended both meanings, I want to focus on the latter meaning: that of conflict.   

There is a conflict between light and dark in scriptures and especially in the book of John. It’s a conflict we experience regularly, too. We experience the happiness of Christmas, and then circumstances change and we feel the darkness of death, sickness, and loss. We experience the faithfulness of God in a tragedy, and yet we still struggle with the trauma the event inflicted. We see people coming to saving faith in Christ, and yet there are so many others who still walk in the darkness of sin. It’s war out there. It’s one where the darkness of sin and evil try to overtake the light of God’s goodness, grace, and salvation. Hear some good news, church: the darkness will not win.   

We are not merely living in a time after the Fall of man as described in Genesis, but we are living in a time after the Genesis 2.0 where Jesus came to make all things right. In that manger, Jesus, a tiny beacon of light, breathed the air He Himself created, anticipating a future where that air would be filled with light instead of darkness.  

In Advent, we waited on Jesus to be born. Now in the Christmas season, we remember Jesus has indeed come into the world. We live in a world where we can share the beacon of Jesus’ love, forgiveness, and the reconciliation he offers us with God. And yet we still wait on Jesus to come again. He’s come, yes. But we’re waiting on him to come again and make things right.  

And boy that waiting is hard sometimes. We’ve talked about how to actively wait on God in previous sermons. We’ve said that through the means of grace like prayer, fellowship, and service, we can experience God’s grace here on earth as an active waiting. But isn’t it easier to wait in our ways that are temporarily way more fun? Like retail therapy? Add to cart. Or pour another drink. Or watch another episode. Or scroll through social media a little bit longer. Or watch things you know doesn’t honor God or your spouse. The list goes on. I bet you can add your own and I assure you I can too. If you have a therapist, they probably call these practices, “maladaptive coping skills.” They’re unhealthy ways of dealing with stress, difficult situations, or generally, the darkness of the world. Sometimes they seem so benign at first, but often these practices lead us into deeper spirals of darkness. What was meant to provide some relief from darkness just made our world darker.   

So if it isn’t these maladaptive coping skills that help us overcome the darkness, then what? I trust you’re following me when I bring us back to the Life-Light, Jesus Himself. The effects of darkness can’t drive out darkness, but the Light can. The Light can and does drive out darkness. Present tense. Jesus is still driving away the darkness. Here’s how we can actively participate in the work of the Life-Light to drive darkness and bring forth light. Five steps. You ready? If you’ve tuned out, this is an excellent opportunity to tune back in. Here are five steps to participate with the Life-Light to drive out darkness and bring forth His light.  

Step 1. Don’t ignore the darkness. One of the maladaptive coping skills that is so common is avoidance. “If I close my eyes, the bad will go away.” We’re like a baby playing peek-a-boo except we’re covering our own eyes and ignoring what’s around us. Look, until Jesus comes back, the bad will be there. We live in a world darkened by sin. We’re surrounded by sickness, disasters, brokenness, and by sin, willful evil. There’s no use denying it. It won’t make it go away and the relief we feel from ignoring it will be brief. Don’t ignore the darkness. It’s there. That’s step 1.   

Step 2. Recognize that the Life-Light, Jesus, the Word of God made flesh is the only way to see in a world darkened by sin. Through God’s grace in our world and in our lives, we have glimmers of light. Every laugh of a child, beautiful sunrise, and new birth are glimpses of God’s grace in our world. When we take communion, have fellowship, and worship God, we experience God’s grace in our world. These areas of light are where we see that the Life-Light is here, and He’s shining in our dark world even today. So Step 2 is to recognize that Jesus is the only dependable light to see in a world darkened by sin.  

Step 3. Let the light of Jesus shine in the darkness of your heart first. Let Jesus’ light purge out the areas of darkness and maladaptive coping skills you’ve developed to ineffectively deal with the darkness. Ask Jesus to shine His light and purge your heart. It’ll may take a lifetime, so step 3 is probably more like a daily prayer. Pray for the light of Jesus to purge the darkness of sin from your own heart so that His light shines in its stead.  

Step 4. Now that Jesus has begun purging the darkness from you and making you shine his light instead, be a beacon. You are now a lantern of His light. We talked about this some on Christmas Eve as we held up our candles. Jesus’s light is with you and it can light up others who come into your midst like a candle in a dark room. It’s not your light, but it’s Jesus’. It reminds me of a liturgy I love that says, “Because Jesus is good news, and Jesus is in me, I am good news.” If Jesus’ light is shining in you, you’ll become a beacon. Through your words and life, others can experience Jesus’ light in a dark world. So Step 4 is let Jesus make you into a lantern of His light.  

Step 5. Trust that the light will extinguish the darkness. Trust that even when we experience darkness and pain, we know that there will come a day where it will be over. Someday the darkness that feels overwhelming will instead be overwhelmed by the Light of God Himself – Jesus. Someday it will be over. For me this is something I have to cling to in challenging times. I have to remember that Jesus will make all the wrong, right. He’ll purge the darkness and leave only light. Jesus will extinguish the darkness.  

Here they are again if you want to write them down. 

Step 1: Don’t ignore the darkness.  

Step 2: Jesus is the only dependable source of light in a dark world.  

Step 3: Let the light of Jesus shine in your own heart to purge the darkness first, and daily.  

Step 4: Ask Jesus to make you into a lantern of His light. 

And Step 5: Trust that the light will extinguish the darkness.  

These five steps can only be done by the Spirit who indwells you and gives you faith to follow God and allow God to purge the darkness from you as well.   

Here’s why this is good news at Christmas time: we’re living in Genesis 2.0. Jesus has come, he’s started making all things new at his birth, and He will finish what he started. He’s purging the darkness that started too shortly after creation. And the baby Jesus reminds us that God loved us so much that he’s willing to come fight for us with us. Though he’s ascended, the Spirit is with us now and Jesus is still fighting the darkness away.  

The darkness won’t win. Pain, sin, and brokenness are not the final words. Jesus is. Jesus is the final Word, the Word of God made flesh. He will overcome the darkness as he makes the world right. The darkness will not win because Jesus already has. And his victory started as a baby breathing the air that was created through Him.   

Let’s pray.  

Oh, heavenly Father. You created us through the Son, the Life-Light. And then you sent Him to us as a baby to live in the world made through Him. Make us beacons of His light so others may have a light to see in the darkness, and may they see Jesus in us. Amen.