You Are Light

Sunday, April 3 2011

Lent 4A

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

Ephesians 5:8-14

⁸For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— ⁹for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. ¹⁰Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. ¹¹Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. ¹²For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; ¹³but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, ¹⁴for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

If you saw the movie, Forrest Gump a few years back, you will remember how Forrest always had a quote from his mama to sum up just about any situation that a person might find himself or herself in. And if Forrest were to comment on this text from Ephesians, he might have this to say: "It's like my mama always used to say, 'Light is as light does.' "

Light is as light does. And what light does is shine out of the darkness. What light does is to make darkness disappear. Light and darkness cannot exist in the same space, because anytime light shows up, it pushes the darkness away. Darkness can exist on the edge of light, but it can never invade the space light has claimed.

Our lives seem to be filled with gray areas. Areas that are not fully illuminated nor are they fully darkened. Yet, while we try to convince ourselves that these gray areas exist to give us choices, we know deep down inside that the right choices always lead to the light, not the darkness. From inside those gray areas we can see that the right choices are not hidden from us, but are in plain view.

The Ephesians text tells us: "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Those gray areas are described as sleep from which we can awake, or even death, from which we can rise. And when we escape those gray areas, Christ will shine on us. Not only will he shine on us, he will shine out from us.

As Christians, we believe Jesus is the light of the world. He illuminates darkness so that in his light all secrets and hidden evils are revealed. If we choose to live in the light of Jesus, all that is dark within our lives is revealed and nothing is hidden from him, or from the rest of the world.

What is it about light that makes it better than darkness? The obvious answer is that you can see light. Not only can you see light, but light also makes all things in its path visible so that you don't stumble into things. Light has a presence that makes it known to you. You can't miss light when it's around although you may not consciously think about it. But take it away, turn it off, cover it up, and you miss it immediately.

Darkness, on the other hand, is the absence of light. Darkness is empty of light.

When we think of it in those terms, and believe that Jesus is the Light of the world, it is then we can say that Jesus is something you can see, while evil is hidden. Jesus makes everything else visible, while evil blocks things out. Evil is the absence of Jesus. Evil is void of everything that Jesus has come to represent to people.

Light promotes growth. Darkness leads to death.

A woman was working in her garden and came upon a large, green, healthy--looking squash plant, and she began to admire it. The stems appeared to be strong, and the leaves were large. She thought about the beautiful squash that this plant would one day produce.  She looked forward to making squash casserole with them.

A few days later she noticed that the plant was terribly wilted. There were no signs of any damage, and none of the plants around it were in this condition. She couldn't figure out what had happened and she tried to give it extra care to nurse it back to health. But in a couple more days, it was completely dead. She pulled the plant up and examined its roots. That’s when she discovered that a bore worm, which could not be seen from the outside, had eaten the heart out of the stem of the plant.

That's how our dark, hidden sins work on us. Like the bore worm, hidden sins can eat away at the heart of our Christian experience and leave us spiritually dead. When left unexposed to the light, sin continues to do its dirty work: obstructing our lives, destroying the true joy of life, and separating us from a loving God.

A lighted path is easy to follow. We stumble in the darkness.

I have a scar on my right shin.  I got it on our wedding night, and although it quickly became a source of jokes, here’s the real story: We were in a beautiful but unfamiliar cabin in the woods outside London Kentucky.  I got up at some point in the night, in the dark, and didn’t turn on a light.  Getting out of the bedroom was no problem, and coming back in wasn’t one either, but as I approached the bed, I forgot that it was a platform bed, and banged into it solidly.  Gave myself a good two and a half inch cut when I walked into that platform.  If I had turned on the light – even for a moment, I would have seen the platform and would have avoided slamming into it.    

Like a lighthouse on the shores of the ocean, light can lead people to safe harbor or it can warn them of dangerous waters. As people come in contact with Jerusalem, and into our lives, they are looking for family, for fellowship, and for some sense of the divine presence. They want to know God and they want to be known by God.  Are we a light that others can see in the darkness? Are we easily identifiable as followers of Jesus so that people recognize our church as a safe place to be? Not by the name on the sign, but by the way we live and act when WE are outside this building?  Are we, as a congregation, a string of lights that shine out and into our community? Can we lead people to the light of Christ and away from the dangers of sin?

The Holy Spirit living within us gives off a light that people cannot miss. Are we sometimes too busy going about with church work that we forget to do the work of the Kingdom? We can master the budget, the music, the worship, the fellowship times, the Sunday school curriculum, and all sorts of committees, but if we are not running our light outside the building, then it is all for nothing.

When the power gets low, or the connection is faulty, a light might begin to grow dim. And when the power source is completely severed, the light goes out completely, and the word for that is darkness.

Light cannot help but to shine outward. You cannot hide your light under a bushel basket and expect it to be seen by others and attract attention. A light that is hidden is darkness and does not do anyone any good.

Ultimately, light will show the flaws and imperfections of each of us and all those around us. Our heroes get brought down, our highest government officials have a dark side, our best friends surprise us, and our parents are really human after all. And, oh, how we love to jump on the sins of others, if not out loud, silently to ourselves.

Paul tells us, "For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light" (Ephesians 5:12--13). Sins are revealed not to be talked about or to become the basis for gossip, not to be pitted one against another to show that I am less of a sinner than you, but sins are revealed so that they might be forgiven and corrected. Sins are revealed so that what is done in the darkness might be overcome by what is done in the light. We are not to attack our brothers and sisters for their sinfulness, but are to admonish them concerning the dangers of being drawn to the darkness.

We are children of light who walk in the light. And while this passage tells us more about what life in the light is not than what life in the light is, like a parent pleading to his children, Paul challenges us to discover that for ourselves. "Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord," he says. We know that the light pleases God. So if we live in the light of Jesus, we will reveal all those things that are pleasing to the Lord. By the same token, we can avoid those things that are covered by darkness.

On that first Easter, God broke through the darkness once and for all. The darkness of the tomb of death was exposed when Jesus rolled away the stone. His light now shines throughout the world.

You who are light ... be light. Do what light does. And you will no longer live in darkness.

Let’s pray.