Jesus the Light-Giver
A PLAIN”, coarsely-clad man, from the -* — *- north country of Galilee, is seated in the treasury-court of the Temple at Jerusalem. A portion of the crowd who have come up to the Feast of Tabernacles are gathered around him. Among them leer out several malicious Pharisaic faces and contemptuous scowls of the Rabbis. Beside the company stand two colossal candelabra, fifty cubits high and overlaid with flashing gold. These, when lighted, throw a brilliant illumination over the whole Temple area.
Pointing, probably, to these gigantic lamps, the plain peasant from Nazareth says, with modest dignity: “I am the light of the world.” A look of pity or contempt steals over the countenances of the Jewish auditors as they listen to such an astounding assertion. Yet he, the derided Nazarene, who had led up a band of fishermen to the capital, knew that he was to be the illuminator of the whole globe and bathe all its continents in spiritual glory. Other teachers were but torches, soon to burn out. He was the Divine Sun that should yet “light every man that cometh into the world.” The ferocious bigots at Jerusalem fancied that they had put out the light when they slew him on the cross; but in millions of hearts and homes his warm radiance is felt to-day. No word describes our beloved Lord more perfectly than this one — the light-giver to humanity. I. It is the office of light to reveal; -and Jesus reveals God to us. The conception of an infinite, omnipresent spirit is too vast for us to grasp. But a child can look at God when personated and condensed, as it were, in the form of Jesus Christ. The words of Christ alone can explain God to us, to the humblest of us. The sacrificial death of
Christ explains God’s justice, and his ineffable love wedded unto that justice. Without the flood of discovery which Jesus pours upon the divine attributes we never could have u found out God.” He has revealed to us man’s guilt as it could not otherwise be known. In the broad glare of Calvary’s cross, sin becomes exceeding sinful and deserving of perdition. Jesus has revealed the pathway to Heaven, and poured upon that straight and narrow road the noontide of guidance and bright encouragement. Take out of this sin-cursed world to-day the light which has beamed into it from that plain, persecuted man of Nazareth, and all its multitudinous peoples would be shrouded in a spiritual midnight.
II. Coming down from this broad generalization to a personal view, we discover that Jesus is the light of life to me and to every other immortal soul that consents to accept and follow him. When I am perplexed about any question of duty, I have but to inquire what has Jesus said? What would he have me do? Whither does his own example point? Here is every Christian’s infallible guide. Here is an unerring rule of duty. When any professing Christian is afraid or ashamed to bring his conduct into the searching light of Christ’s direct teachings, that Christian may feel perfectly sure that he is in the wrong. It is not necessary that a man should shirk the light in order to convict himself. If when he brings his decisions and his doings close up to the revealing light of Christ’s example “his deeds are reproved,’7 then the sooner he condemns himself the better. If he does not find the light of Christ’s approval over the doorway of any resort for pleasure, let him turn back straightway. If, when he subjects his ledgers and day-books to Christ’s rules of right, he discovers that they will not stand the test, let him rest assured that his business is dishonestly conducted. He does not need any other auditor of his accounts than his Holy Master. Not a single one of the disgraceful defalcations that have been traced back to dishonored church - members could ever have occurred if these church-members had first subjected their transactions to the ordeal of Christ’s injunctions. Not a single Christian ever stumbles or falls until he has put out the light which Christ has given him. For our Lord has distinctly assured us that whoso” folio weth me shall never walk in darkness.11 Oh! what a friend we have in Jesus. How many a pang of remorse, how many a blush of shame, how many a bitter cup of contrition we should spare ourselves, if we would simply lay our every thought and plan and purpose open to our loving Master! i
“Oh! what peace we often forfeit,
Oh! what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Every thing to him in prayer.”
III. It is also the office of light to quicken. The ivy that is placed in the depths of a dark cellar turns pale and dies. But let a ray of sunlight stream in upon it, and the ivy will at once feel a new life shoot through its fibre and will clamber toward the open window. Sunlight is as essential to vegetation as warmth or water. And the manifest reason why so many Christians are stunted is that they attempt to live in the dark cellar of unbelief. They grope away from his bright, warm countenance into the damp darkness of their own gloomy thoughts and fears, and into their own self-reliances, instead of dwelling under Christ’s “open face.” He is the light of life. His spirit imparts life, his fellowship kindles joy, his promises bestow comfort, his approving smile could make John Bunyan sing in a prison-cell. And even when we have sinned, if we would but bring our hearts, with honest contrition, into the light of Christ’s countenance, we might receive the welcome assurance: “Go thy way. Thy sins are forgiven thee.” Many a sermon has been preached and many a treatise has been written to instruct God’s people how to grow in grace. But the gist of every sound sermon or essay might be condensed into the single short injunction to live in the quickening sunshine of Christ’s countenance. Cheerful old Paul gives the secret of his growth, his strength, and his joy when he says: “It is not I, it is Christ that liveth in me.” He exhorts his brethren, who sometime were darkness and now were light in the Lord, to walk as children of the light. Not one of them could grow while in the dungeon of unbelief and estrangement from Christ.
IY. I need not protract this paper to set forth the palpable and precious truth that Jesus is the only light-giver for dark hours of affliction. A rainbow, with all its polychromatic splendors, is nothing but sunlight playing upon a background of storm. A Christian’s joy in sorrow is simply the reflection of Christ’s smile of love upon the cloud. If no sun, then no rainbow. If Jesus be hidden, then hope disappears. If Jesus depart, how great is that darkness!
The most Heaven-like spots I have ever visited have been certain rooms in which Christ’s disciples were awaiting the summons of death. So far from being a “house of mourning,” I have often found such a house to be a vestibule of glory. At this moment I recall a gifted young woman, whose dying -bed seemed to be spread in the very land of Beulah. Her whole soul overflowed with radiance. Almost the last words she uttered were: “My road through the valley has been long; but it is bright all the way.11 Jesus shone through the gloom, and Death’s vain shadows fled before him. Heaven’s morning broke ere life’s sun had set. Jesus had been to her the light of life in this world. And when her emancipated spirit entered the realms of glory, her first discovery must have been — as it was revealed to the seer of Patmos — that “the LaMb is the light thereof.”