THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
‘I am the Light of the world.’
This is one of the central and salient sayings of our Saviour. It is eminent even amongst the utterances of Him ‘who spake as never man spake.’ He had already declared Himself to be the giver of ‘the living water’; He had offered Himself to the world as ‘the bread of life’; here He presents Himself ‘as its light.’ Yes, what bread and water and light are to man in his physical being, Christ will be to him in his spiritual life.
I. We think with astonishment of the tremendous claim which lies at the back of these words.—None of the great founders of religious systems before or since, have ever assumed the authority for themselves which it implies. The most famous sages and philosophers have ever admitted their own imperfect vision. They have all alike recognised their limitations in respect of knowledge, They only professed to have caught glimpses of the light and to lead men to the blessed sight of it. But our Saviour separates Himself by an impassable gulf from all other teachers of truth and religion in this respect, namely, by having claimed to be Himself ‘the light of the world.’
II. What light is in the world of nature, that Christ claims to be in the higher regions of man’s life.—The condition of the world at His first coming is best described in the words of Zecharias, i.e. ‘Men sat in darkness and in the shadow of death.’ The state of the heathen world to-day shows us what it is to be without Christ, and it fills us with profound sadness when we think of it. ‘Give us light’ has been the wail which has gone up to heaven from Christless souls.
III. Our darkness is threefold until Christ gives us light.—It is intellectual, moral, spiritual.
(a) The understanding must be enlightened before we can apprehend aright the truth of God, the truth which He has revealed by the Gospel for the salvation of mankind. It must ‘be spiritually discerned.’
(b) The moral faculty needs to be enlightened, directed, and strengthened. Men equally dislike to be told the truth in this respect about themselves. They will admit their ignorance and the existence of many things beyond the reach of their minds, but they are sure that they mean well, that they know what is right.
(c) Man as a religious being must come to Christ for light. There is a spiritual side of him; it is in this sphere of his being that he is most nearly related to God and comes into closest touch with Him. Any survey of his nature is defective which stops short with his intellectual powers, his moral sense and his conscience: there is still more of him, he is a religious being.
Rev. F. K. Aglionby.
Illustration
‘There is a brilliant passage in a famous essay by the late Dean Church in which he refers to Dante’s love of light. “He must have studied and dwelt upon it like music. His mind is charged with its effects and combinations, and they are rendered with a force, a brevity, a precision, a heedlessness and unconsciousness of ornament an indifference to circumstance and detail; they flash out with a spontaneous readiness, a suitableness and felicity, which show the familiarity and grasp given only by daily observation, daily thought, daily pleasure. Light everywhere—in the sky and earth and sea—in the star, the flame, the lamp, the gem—broken in the water, reflected from the mirror, transmitted pure through the glass, or coloured through the edge of the fractured emerald—dimmed in the mist, the halo, the deep water—streaming through the rent cloud, glowing in the coal, quivering in the lightning, flashing in the topaz and the ruby, veiled behind the pure alabaster, mellowed and clouding itself in the pearl—light contrasted with shadow—shading off and copying itself in the double rainbow, like voice and echo—light seen within light, as voice discerned within voice … the brighter ‘nestling’ itself in the fainter—the purer set off on the less clear … light in the human eye and face, displaying, figuring, and confounded with its expressions—light blended with joy in the eye … and in the smile: joy lending its expression to light … light from every source, and in all its shapes, illuminates, irradiates, gives its glory to the Comedia.” ’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
CHRIST AND SOCIAL PROGRESS
We deplore existing misery, we see as in a vision a higher and nobler life, but we are confronted with the hard realities of selfish human nature at every turn, which render hopeless the realisation of the vision. It is here that the revelation of Jesus Christ comes to our aid. ‘I am the light of the world,’ He says; ‘He that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness but shall have the light of life.’ By listening to His teaching we shall see what is needed to bring about the better life that we desire; by following His example we shall be going the right way to accomplish our aim. In other passages He claims to be the sole teacher of man, and He follows up this assertion by imparting two great lessons: the first, ‘All ye are brethren; One is your Father, Which is in heaven’; the second, ‘He that is greatest among you shall be your servant.’ If there is truth in these words we have in them light indeed for the perplexities of social life, a new hope for humanity.
I. Brotherhood.—They supply just that proof of the possibility of a real brotherhood of men which depends for its existence, not upon mutual self-interest, but upon mutual love, irrespective of any idea of benefit to be derived from uniting, and the binding force in which is mutual attraction from within, and not pressure from without. They give meaning to that feeling which the best men have ever realised, viz. the feeling of disinterested love and friendship; a love which is greater than that subsisting between the sexes in that it depends on no mutual services rendered; a a love like Jonathan’s, of which David sang—‘Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of woman’; a love which is superior to that between parent and child, because it has no pride of ownership to rest upon nor expectation of benefits to be received; a love that finds its parallel in the pure, disinterested affection between the children of a true and noble family until self-interest creeps in and breaks its spell. It is a grand thing to know that when we feel such an emotion stirring within us for individual men, and for the great mass of suffering humanity, we are not necessarily deluding ourselves; but that there is in us at least the capacity for such disinterested affection; that, selfish as we have grown by long habit, we were not made so, and need not be so.
II. Service.—Following close upon this revelation of brotherhood comes the revelation of duty which is its natural consequence: ‘He that is greatest among you shall be your servant.’ Nor is there any other reason that I can conceive why the greatest should be the servant, except this which Jesus has given, viz. that the greatest is he who is most like God, who therefore loves most, and who in consequence of that love is ever seeking to do most for the rest. And the Blessed Teacher has exhibited in His own Divine Person the truth and beauty of His teaching. He has brought home to men’s hearts and minds a new conception of greatness, so that even selfish men of the world cannot refuse their tribute of praise to self-sacrifice when they see it manifested in a devoted life; however unable they may be to account for such a life, or for the praise and admiration which it extorts even from them.
III. The Light of the World.—My own hope for true social progress in the future depends upon no labour organisations nor programmes of legislation, however useful and even essential these may be in their proper place. But it depends upon the workmen and their leaders being filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ; and that in no vague sense, but as a result of investigating and then acknowledging His claim to be the Light of the World, the Teacher the Revealer of the Heavenly Father of Whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, and upon their being willing to follow Him, and so have the light of life. The pressure of circumstances has brought together great masses of men in various organisations and associations. It needs but the Presence of Christ in the midst of each organisation, and His love in the heart of each individual, to generate that sense of kinship which shall transform the association into a brotherhood. This will not come all at once. But very much may be done if each Christian will let his light shine bright and clear before men; if religious teachers will not shrink from declaring the truth as it is in Jesus for fear of inconvenient inferences that may be drawn from it; if Christians of the capitalist class will bring their religion into every detail of their business life and be ready to take the consequences; and, finally, if workmen, members of labour organisations, who believe in Jesus as their Saviour and Teacher, will strive to have and to give to their fellow-workmen a reason for the faith that is in them, and will commend that faith to them by the uprightness of their life. It may be that much of what is set before us as exhibiting the ideal state of the future will prove to be impracticable. Probably the path of progress will not be by great revolutions, social or industrial, but through the detection of injustices and hardships by the quickened conscience of an awakened community, and the rapid and sure remedying of the evils as they are one by one dragged out into the light of day. But by whatever way we are led we shall be sure to go right if we follow Christ. We shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life, and it will lead us into the kingdom of our Father and our God: His kingdom on earth, for the advent of which all Christians daily pray in the prayer which Christ has given us; and after that His kingdom in heaven.’
Rev. Canon G. E. Ford.
(THIRD OUTLINE)
THE LIGHT-GIVER
The words are characterised by a fullness which is very impressive.
I. It is Christ Himself Who is that wondrous Light.—It is from His Personality that there stream the illuminating rays which suffice for the spiritual necessities of all mankind. In a famous picture Christ is portrayed as carrying the light. The lamp is in the hand of the suffering Son of Man. The genius of the artist ought not to blind us to the inadequacy of the representation. Surely its insufficiency corresponds to the incompleteness of that interpretation of the saying which understands Him to mean no more than that in His doctrine all men may have the satisfaction of their needs and the solution of their perplexities. His words were indeed light; but the light of which he here speaks consists of much more than His teaching. He is Himself ‘the Pillar of Light,’ ever moving onward, ever scattering the gloom which would otherwise obscure and sadden human circumstances. The Light of the World is a Person—the historic Christ, ‘Son of man,’ ‘Son of God.’
II. In order to gain the benefit of that Divine Light there must be discipleship finding its expression in activity and advance. ‘He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness.’ ‘The light is not for self-absorbed contemplation. It is given for action, movement, progress.’
III. The promise is not merely one of guidance, but of possession.—The disciple will not only be able to see the light, but he ‘shall have’ it. The light becomes a part of the true and persevering follower. The idea of the possibility of self-communication by Him in Whom all life was gathered together to its multitudinous parts is one of the fundamental conceptions of Christianity. The Christian life is not only one of imitation, but also one of reinvigoration in Him.
IV. An unfailing light!—A light strong enough to scatter the thickest shades! A light capable of irradiating all our path! A light which no ‘darkness’ can ‘overcome’! It is for this that we so often cry out. It is this which the Gospel offers us in that Figure of figures, to Whom none other in all the long annals of the human race can be seriously compared. Without Him, without the all-sufficient illumination of His abiding Presence, without the testimony of that Incarnation, that ministry, that Passion, that triumph, without that everlasting ‘Light of light,’ there is over not a little of our road a degree of distorting mist and of impenetrable blackness which no optimism can deny or explain away. Without Christ as guide and food and light
‘In darkness and in weariness
The traveller on his way must press.’
But with Him—as Himself the burning and shining pillar—treading in His steps, accepting His leadership, faithful to His words, believing in His Divine Sonship, we need not be afraid of present or future.
—Rev. the Hon. W. E. Bowen.
Illustration
‘For all thy rankling doubts so sore,
Love thou thy Saviour still,
Him for thy Lord and God adore,
And ever do His will.
Though vexing thoughts may seem to last,
Let not thy soul be quite o’ercast;—
Soon will He show His wounds, and say
“Long have I known thy name—know thou My face alway.” ’