The Light of the World

It’s still the Feast of Booths and it’s still the last day of that feast/

Recall that the Feast of Booths was a celebration of God’s presence with Israel as they wandered the wilderness for 40 years. Specifically, he led them as a cloudy pillar during the day, and a pillar of fire at night.

The Feast of Booths celebrated that light from God. After the water was poured out on the altar there was the lighting ceremony. Huge lamps in the outer courtyard were lit and the celebration took off!

The Mishnah Sukkah

They said: Anyone who has not seen the rejoicing of bet hashshoebah in his life has never seen rejoicing.

The Mishnah Sukkah

And there was not a courtyard in Jerusalem which was not lit up from the light of bet hashshoebah. The pious men and wonder workers would dance before them with flaming torches in their hand,

They would do this until dawn and then march out to the gates of the temple.

The Mishnah Sukkah

[When] they reached the gate which goes out toward the east, they turned around toward the west, and they said, “Our fathers who were in this place turned with their backs toward the Temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, and they worshipped the sun toward the east (Ez. 8:16). “But as to us, our eyes are to the Lord.” R. Judah says, “They said it a second time, ‘We belong to the Lord, our eyes are toward the Lord.’ ”

Understand what they are declaring during this ritual:

God is the light who guides Israel through life
There was a time when Israel turned their back to God in favor of the lesser light from the sun
We will never again turn our backs to our God – Our eyes are to the Lord. We will look to him alone to lead us in life

And it is in the context that Jesus makes a bold statement:

John 8:12 ESV

¹² Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Take a moment to appreciate how shocking this would sound to anyone at the feast:

To the pharisees who are saying they will look to God alone – Jesus is a blasphemer saying “Look at me instead!”
To his disciples, to us, Jesus is saying “If you want your eyes on God then you need to have your eyes on me.”

Unsurprisingly, it’s mostly upsetting to people. Claiming to be God is a tall order so the Pharisees demand proof.

John 8:13 ESV

¹³ So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.”

The Pharisees might have thought there was a great irony to Jesus claiming to be the light. Not only was God the light of Israel, so was his law!

Psalm 119:105 ESV

¹⁰⁵ Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Well, apparently Jesus – the light of the world – can’t even see the light of the law! You can’t testify about yourself! Everything is to be established by the word of two or three witnesses. So your testimony isn’t true – you can’t show us the truth, and you can’t handle the truth!

Connect

That’s what plenty of people think about Jesus’ claims. He can’t show me anything! What does a 30-year-old carpenter, from the backwoods of ancient Israel, possibly have to say to me? How can he possibly answer the needs and questions in this modern world?

Atheists might think he’s got some nice sayings but he can’t show us the way to live life
Other religions look to their gods for what they believe to be an accurate view of reality
Even people who profess to be Christians will say that Jesus is someone to look up to at times, but we’re a lot smarter these days so take him with a grain of salt

So by what rights does Jesus have any say in how we ought to live our life, that his way is the best way, that his way is the only one that will lead to eternal life?

By what rights of ours can we convict people of sin and correct them?

There are two parts to Jesus’ claim of truth:

Where he’s from
Who he’s from

Both of these answers help us get a grasp of the truth.

Jesus is From Above

John 8:14–15 ESV

¹⁴ Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. ¹⁵ You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.

Postmodern Chaos

A major category of thought and viewing the world is Postmodernism.

This isn’t a philosophy lecture
I’m not going to bore you to death with the details
Instead I’m going to wildly oversimplify a complex movement that entire libraries of books have tried to explain

Here’s the fundamental problem that Postmodernists recognize.

› Insert comic

Both claims of what the number is are true, depending on your perspective. And some would argue that neither of the answers is false either. What makes Jenkin’s answer any greater or lesser than Maynard’s? Each has their own truth because both are equal participants in the universe with no inherent authority over the other.

Now change the number into something much more complicated to figure out and multiply the number of perspectives by about 4 billion and ask yourself “Why should my perspective be the correct one in competition with all those others?”

If we can’t figure out what’s actually true and have an accurate and agreed upon map of reality – then we need a referee to make the call.

This is where God and Jesus come in.

Prove It

In verse 14 Jesus knows where he’s from.

In verse 21 Jesus is going that his audience cannot follow

But verse 23 has it the clearest:

John 8:23 ESV

²³ He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.

Jesus has the ability to know truth because he is from above – he has that all encompassing view of reality, that can take the whole world into account from the correct and authoritative perspective.

This is the same point that God makes to Job at the end of his book.

Job and his friends spend the majority of the book trying to figure out why God would put Job through the ringer. They all have their ideas and answers to explain life – and all of them end up being wrong.

To drive this point home, God takes Job on a tour of creation in Job 38-39.

Have you seen the beginning as God has?
Have you explored the depths of the earth?
Have you seen where the dead go?

One of the core message of Job is that for all the great things we can know, we don’t know what’s happening outside of this room right now.

Job 28 says that even if we did explore the innards of the earth, the heights of the sky, and even found the place of the dead – we wouldn’t be able to find the wisdom that God possesses. He is so far above what we are that we could never come close to having truly comprehensive understanding of God.

Or as Jesus says:

John 8:15–16 ESV

¹⁵ You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. ¹⁶ Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me.

Even those who reject the Postmodern perspective of truth being subjective, even if we all do agree that there is an objective truth – we’re really bad at finding it. We judge according to the flesh and the flesh can’t keep up.

We have biases and have a hard time recognizing it.
We explain other people’s behaviors as an inherent trait while we excuse ourselves. He’s late because he’s lazy – I’m late because of traffic.
We explain ourselves with nuance and attention to detail whereas if our opponent says just one wrong thing we lump them in with the rest of the liberal weirdos or conservative wackos.
People often look for evidence to support their claim while ignoring anything that might lead them to different conclusions. There’s no interest in finding truth – just things that tell me I’m already in truth. Forget the thousands of reasons why I might be wrong, I’ve found one that says I’m right!

If left to our billions of misinformed, biased, and irrational perspectives then we have no hope of finding truth. But Jesus can guide us out of the dark confusion and into the light of truth because he sees everything from above.

Truth Through Reality

Jesus doesn’t just argue the truth from a unique perspective, but an authoritative one.

One of the ways people argue for what’s true is what works.

Back to our comic – 6 or 9. Maybe we’re fighting over the best time to get up in the morning – 6:00 or 9:00? I’ll argue for 6:00 because it’s the only time of day I can sit down and read without a kid needing some attention. It’s what works for me, but some college student doesn’t care how well that works for me because waking up at 9:00 sounds a whole lot better after a night of cramming for a test. So what’s the best time to wake up? Depends on what works for you.

But what if the stakes were higher? What if you’re in a gunfight and he’s got a six-shot revolver and you’re thinking “Did he fire six shots? Or only five?”

The stakes are even higher with Jesus.

John 8:23–27 ESV

²³ He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. ²⁴ I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” ²⁵ So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. ²⁶ I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” ²⁷ They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father.

As someone who see things from above he knows where all of our paths end up. He knows that we’re going to die in our sins. He knows this because of who he is from – the Father. Jesus isn’t just arguing from a unique perspective. He’s arguing from an authoritative one.

Jesus says that our death is inevitable unless we believe that “Jesus is he.” Who is the he Jesus claims to be?

This is another “I Am” statement that connects Jesus back to God’s name. When God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush he calls himself “I AM.” But the way it’s phrased connects also sounds very similar to a passage in Isaiah 48:12-13.

Isaiah 48:12–13 ESV

¹² “Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am he; I am the first, and I am the last. ¹³ My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together.

God makes this same claim over and over again in Isaiah – I am he.

I am the only savior
I am the only God
I am the one who created the heavens and the earth

We look to Jesus as our light because he the one through whom we were made – which means he knows why we were made.

This is a Roman dodecahedron. Archaeologists have found 130 of these dating from around 100-300 AD and have no idea what they were used for. It’s been suggested that they could be:

Weapons
Navigational tools
Used in knitting
Or even just a blacksmiths display of skill

We have no idea who started making them or why – and so to this day their purpose is a mystery.

That’s how a lot of people view their lives.

Why was I made?
Why am I here?
What’s my purpose?

Jesus knows. He was the one who made you. And he wants to show you – he’s the light that guides you to your purpose. And he also knows that if we keep chasing after the things we weren’t made for, then that’s how we end up broken. Every other answer as to life’s meaning or purpose is a shot in the dark with no hope of giving you any purpose that will survive death.

That answer isn’t directly addressed in John 8, so I’ll give you some answers found in other scripture.

Our purpose is to be like God – that’s why we were made in his image.
Our purpose is to serve him and glorify his name through our obedience
Our purpose is to show others his light so that they can find life

John 8:12 ESV

¹² Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Matthew 5:16 ESV

¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Conclusion

Jesus not only has the answers, he demonstrates them. And as his disciples we should too because we have the light of life.

We have the answers that people are desperately looking for – we have the light that shows us who we are and where we’re going.

Jesus is the only one who can reliably give us the answers of who we are and what we were made for.

Through his life he shows us the way we should live – the way that leads to eternal life

And when we follow that way we can show others a way out of darkness so that they won’t die in their sins.