Bible Reading — John 8:12–20
The Bible reading this morning is from the Gospel of John, chapter eight, verses 12 to 20. When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. The Pharisees challenged him. Here you are appearing as your own witness. Your testimony is not valid. Jesus answered, even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid. For I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I came from or where I'm going. You judge. By human standards, I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge, my decisions are true because I am not alone. I stand with the father who sent me. In your own Lord is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. I am one who testifies for myself. My other witness is the father who sent me. Then I asked him, where is your father? You do not know me or my father. Jesus replied, if you knew me, you would know my father also. He spoke these words while teaching in the temple courts near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no one seized him because his hour has not yet come. This is the word of the Lord.
I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
When I started my placement here at Deep Creek back in March, we were in a series of questions from Luke's Gospel questions that Jesus asked and answered.
Questions that opened up hope.
Now we've got this two week mini series between Galatians and Corinthians, and we're taking this opportunity to return to the words of Jesus, this time in John's gospel, John chapter eight.
This chapter is a conversation, a debate of sorts, and it's quite a heated one.
This is the beginning of the conversation.
What we just heard read.
But at the end of the chapter in verse 59, Jesus debate opponents have reached a point of picking up stones to stone him to kill him.
Yet the dialogue opens with these words, which, even standing alone, are worth pulling us back to this chapter.
Time and again I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
A Universal Image
Sometimes when we read the Bible, since we're reading old words written in culturally foreign places, we find picture language, figurative language that feels foreign and far removed.
Metaphors of old wineskins and clay jars and reaping and sowing, and camels and sheep.
Metaphors that you think, oh, hopefully the preacher will explain what this means.
This is not that.
I am the light of the world.
This is an image, a metaphor that is so universal, so timeless.
It needs no translation.
Every culture, every faith background, people from the city and the country and the 1960s and the 1360s and in every age can connect to this image of light in darkness.
And every culture celebrates with lights, candles, lanterns, Christmas lights, menorahs, even bonfires.
I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
This is a profound statement.
There are words that we get used to hearing.
They're familiar.
But this is a truth to remember and to bask in.
The Claim in John’s Gospel
John's gospel famously contains seven I am statements from Jesus, important statements about his identity and offer.
And this is the second I am statement at this point in John's account of Jesus life.
Opposition is fierce and escalating.
There's division amongst people about who Jesus is.
Many people are coming to believe and follow, even understanding that Jesus is the Christ.
But others are angry, planning his downfall, wanting him dead.
So when Jesus brings this profound identity claim, I am the light of the world.
Not everyone is looking to understand or open to accept.
There are people who have an agenda to undermine and invalidate from verse 13.
The Pharisees challenged him are.
The Pharisees were an influential Jewish sect, and the author of this gospel has introduced them previously as opponents of Jesus.
The Pharisees challenged him.
Here you are appearing as your own witness.
Your testimony is not valid.
It's a legal argument.
Maybe not how you'd normally respond to someone's claim about themselves, but maybe you would.
If you've ever had to interview someone for a job, you know this is the bane of recruitment.
What do you do with someone's claims about themselves?
You have carefully crafted interview questions, but the answers are just one man's opinion about himself.
Like.
Great.
You say you're a strategic leader.
You say you have great self-awareness and high EQ, but I know that the most self-aware people, or the least self-aware people, are the least self-aware.
They don't know themselves.
So are they a reliable witness?
I mean, maybe if I could know what other people said about you, that would at least help.
Corroboration is important.
Where's the evidence?
Who else is willing to go on record that this is the truth?
Conflict of interest is a problem when you're testifying about yourself.
But even when it's not a testimony of oneself, one person's words are not enough.
That was actually enshrined in the Jewish legal system with its basis in the law of Moses.
And the Pharisees reference it.
Deuteronomy 19 one witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they have committed.
A matter must be established by the testimony of 2 or 3 witnesses.
The Pharisees know this law, and it seems they have a similar expectation about positive claims.
If Jesus is going to make claims, he'd better be able to back them up.
But the Pharisees are not just checking Jesus references.
This is an attempt to undermine and invalidate him.
They want people to doubt him.
This arrogant guy out here making these big claims.
But where's the proof?
It's an attempt to undermine and invalidate, and it might work because it might get under the skin of the people in the crowd.
They'd have a real question.
How trustworthy is Jesus testimony and the strength of a testimony?
It depends on two things the knowledge of the witness and ignorant witness gives a worthless testimony.
And as in the legal system, one witness alone is not enough.
Jesus Engages the Challenge
So Jesus engages.
Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going.
But you have no idea where I came from or where I am going.
My testimony has strength because I understand what's happening while you are ignorant.
I know that I have come from the father.
I know that I'm going back to the father.
You try to judge by human standards, by worldly criteria, but you do not understand.
Not at all.
Jesus is often judged by human standards, then and now and on human standards.
There actually is something impressive about him and his influence and something attractive about his teaching.
This is some research from 2021.
Australians were asked whether they thought Jesus was a real person or mythical or fictional.
You can see the numbers there.
49% believed he was a real person, 22 fictional, 29 unsure.
And then they were asked their beliefs about him.
And 22% called him God.
That's the pale blue bar.
22% said a normal human, but another 23% said he was a prophet or spiritual leader.
We know that some of the teachings of Jesus have kind of seeped their way into our cultural sphere, as good things turn the other cheek.
Be a good Samaritan.
Go the extra mile.
Comes from the Bible, from Jesus words in Matthew five.
If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them too.
We've accepted generally in Australia some of these Jesus esque life lessons and along with that attitude to Jesus teaching.
Many people have this attitude to Jesus that calls him a spiritual leader of some sort or another, but one among many.
The problem is, it's hard to make the evidence fit with that claim.
Not because Jesus wasn't a good teacher, prophet, or leader, but to be a good spiritual leader or a true prophet.
You really need to be telling the truth about God.
So there's a problem created by Jesus own claim about himself.
Jesus claim to be more than a human, not just living a life here, but having come from God and returning to God.
Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, who is God Himself.
That is not good teaching.
That is either the truth or a lie that doesn't fit with Jesus as a spiritual leader, but one among many that fits with Jesus as a power hungry, self-interested liar.
Unless it doesn't.
Unless it's true.
Unless he's God.
The Pharisees were trying to understand Jesus by human standards, but they actually were not interested in understanding the truth at all.
They were not open to a truth that would disrupt their world.
Because this isn't a human thing that's happening.
The Pharisees know where Jesus came from.
He came from Galilee.
But they don't see that he came from heaven, from God the Father, from eternity.
The Pharisees see Jesus as the human, but they do not see his divinity, so they hate him.
This man who speaks like his God, they call him a liar and despise his words.
Testimony and Witnesses in John
Jesus has the understanding of the truth that's needed to be a good witness, a valid testimony.
But standing alone there is still an issue.
One person's witness is not enough.
Actually, across John's Gospel, Jesus keeps returning to this concept of testimony and witness.
People have compared John's gospel to a courtroom drama with all this language of accusations and judgments and witnesses and questions of truth.
And Jesus brings his witnesses.
He calls to the witness box John the Baptist, a witness to testify concerning the light.
In chapter one, verse seven.
He calls the Old Testament scriptures five, verse 39.
He calls Moses 546.
Then he calls his works.
The works that I do testify to me in chapter ten.
And finally a future testimony.
The spirit he will testify on my behalf.
1539 but here in our passage he calls the father to the witness box.
The father testifies on the son's behalf.
818 as I was writing this sermon, I got to thinking about my own father.
And my dad is a really generous man.
Both of my parents are.
So much so that his generosity gets kind of amplified out through me a bit.
I'm generous with his generosity.
Once I brought a friend over with a broken bike so my dad could fix it.
Last year, I had a birthday dinner at my parents house.
The dining table is bigger than mine, and then the next thing I knew, they were hosting a birthday dinner for a friend of mine, also at their house.
Only a few weeks ago.
A friend that I know through college who's studying online but lives in Chad as a missionary, and he was coming to Melbourne for an intensive for two weeks of study and looking for somewhere to stay.
And I'm there texting him, saying, you know, you could probably stay at my parents spare bedroom if it's helpful.
It's not my house, but you can stay there.
It requires a pretty close relationship, right?
For you to offer something that belongs to someone else as though it were your own.
In this chapter, we get an insight into the relationship between the Father and Jesus the Son, and insight into the closeness of the relationship.
It is essential that the father testifies to the son because Jesus is claiming to speak from God, to speak for God even as God.
This closeness of relationship, this unity, it allows Jesus to judge not alone, but along with the father.
Verse 15, my judgments are true because I am not alone.
I stand with the father who sent me.
"Neither Do I Condemn You"
It's an authority that Jesus exercised in the scene just before the one that we read a moving scene with a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery.
A woman had been found out as a sexual sinner, and been dragged to the temple courts, and made to stand before a group of Pharisees and teachers of the law.
And then they asked Jesus, teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery in the law.
Moses commanded us to stone such women.
Now what do you say?
You might know the story.
Jesus bends down and writes in the dirt, but they keep on questioning him until he stands up and says, let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.
And slowly, one at a time, they walk away in silence.
When it's just Jesus and the woman, he asks her, where are they?
Has no one condemned you?
She says, no one, sir.
Then neither do I condemn you.
Says Jesus, go now and leave your life of sin.
Jesus makes his judgment.
No one is without sin.
Yet I will not condemn you.
It's a moving, comforting word from a man to a woman, from a teacher to a sinner.
But it's more than that when it comes from the son.
It's because of Jesus identity, his unity with the father that when he says, neither do I condemn you.
It's really true.
And the woman can hear and know neither does God condemn me.
It's the same kind of assurance that Jesus offers to the paralyzed man in Mark two.
Saying, son, your sins are forgiven.
In that passage, the religious rule is react.
Why does this fellow talk like that?
He's blaspheming.
Who can forgive sins but God alone?
And the answer to that accusation lies in this closeness of relationship, this unity between Jesus and the father, this closeness, this unity.
It allows Jesus to offer what normally only God could offer forgiveness, freedom, light, life.
Revealing the Father
It's worth noticing also that this unity allows Jesus to reveal the father to us.
In John chapter one it says, no one has ever seen the father, but the one and only son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the father has made him known.
It's family resemblance resemblance, but kind of amped up to 110%.
Sons look like their fathers.
Oftentimes they act like their father's.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, we say.
Sons speak like their fathers and pick up their mannerisms.
Sons inherit the family business.
Or they did, at least in Jesus day.
In Jesus context, sons were very much expected to resemble and represent their fathers, and Jesus is that, and very much more.
He is the son who is himself God, or in the language of Hebrews one, the son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being.
I was involved last year in an evangelistic ministry at the cathedral on Flinders Street.
It's a church, but it's also a tourist attraction.
People visiting Melbourne walk through to admire the architecture, and the ministry that I was involved with welcomes these tourists and offers to tell them a Bible story that's depicted in one of the stained glass windows.
Their stories of Jesus.
Jesus calming the storm, raising the widow's son, speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, and when the stories are told, they are introduced with this little piece of context.
Something like this.
The big Christian story is about the God who made everything, and who came into the world as the person of Jesus.
So when we learn about Jesus, it shows us what God is like.
And that's true.
When we learn about Jesus, he shows us what God is like because the father and the son are one in closest relationship and unity.
There is no distinction between the character of Jesus loving, forgiving, just trustworthy, and the character of God.
There is no room in the Christian faith to believe that Jesus is loving, but God is wrathful.
Or Jesus forgives, but God is angry.
Well, Jesus is peaceful, but God is violent.
The son and the father are truly one aligned alike the same.
It's also the case that this closeness of relationship, this unity.
It reveals that the Pharisees are not only rejecting Jesus, they are rejecting God.
They claim to know God, but they do not.
You do not know me or my father.
If you knew me, you would know my father also.
Jesus tells them, I and the father are so one that if you knew and accepted either one of us, you would know and accept the other.
There is no knowing God but rejecting Jesus.
There are many places to search for God.
Different routes people take to discover meaning or encounter the divine.
But there is no knowing God and rejecting Jesus.
None.
This is a big claim that Jesus is making, that God is His Father and that he and the father are one.
It is not the claim of a good teacher or prophet.
It is the claim of a power hungry, self-interested liar.
Unless it isn't.
Unless it's truth.
This is a big claim that Jesus is making, but it is one attested to by reliable witnesses.
It's a claim worth investigating that stands up to investigation.
And it's worth believing.
It's a claim that I believe, and it's worth it.
It's worth it.
Not least because of what he says in verse 12.
Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
Light and Darkness
This is a profound statement.
Light is a profound thing, a universal and timeless image.
Light is safety and sight.
It's warmth.
Light is sunshine and life and color.
Light is what makes the Jew glisten and the lilies open.
Light is revelation and truth.
Light is banishment of darkness.
Jesus is the light of the world.
The light that the world needs.
That the world was made for.
Made to bask in.
Jesus is the light of the world.
Without his light there is only darkness.
Life without Jesus is walking in darkness.
Darkness is a universal and timeless image.
Darkness is cold and danger.
It's blindness.
Darkness.
Night is the first thing that children instinctively fear.
Light reveals, but darkness hides, harboring wickedness, harboring danger.
It's a biblical metaphor.
Darkness is sin and darkness is death.
I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
Whoever follows Jesus will have him, will have the light of life.
It's a truth that radiates warmth in a cold world.
It's a truth to bask in.
There are shadows in this world.
We will walk through them.
We will walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
But we will have light because he is with us.
And even when we close our eyes in the darkness of death, we will open them in the light of Christ.
Amen.
