The True Light Series

A young man went from paper to paper trying to get a job as a cartoonist, but he was

rejected and told he had no talent. Finally, a pastor hired him to draw advertising for the

church events. It was a poor paying job and he had no place to stay and so he was allowed to

sleep in the old church manse. One morning as the sun rose he was awakened by the noise of

scurrying mice and this gave him an idea. He began to sketch one of those church mice and

that morning one of the most famous of fictional characters was born-Mickey Mouse. Walt

Disney always looked back on that morning as the dawn of his career. Amazing and

wondrous things happen in history and in our physical world when the Sun, the light of our

world, rises.

Everyday is a new adventure in life as we rise from the darkness of night and walk into the

light where God promises His mercies are new every morning. What a wondrous thing is

light.

Out of the scabbard of the night

By God's hand drawn,

Flashes his shining sword of light,

And lo-the dawn.

Every dawn is a wonder but never has there been a more wondrous dawn than that on

which the sun arose for the first time on this planet when it's creator was one of the

inhabitants. Through Him all things were made and now He is a part of His own creation.

The artist has entered his own painting. The author has become a character in his own

drama. It is a wonder beyond all wonders for on that first Christmas dawn the light of our

physical world was shining down on the light of our spiritual world. It was a dawn of a new

day in a new way, for never before in history had the sun ever risen on Him who is the origin

of all light.

John was so dazzled by the light of Christ that he became the apostle of light and used the

word light in his Gospel more than all the others put together. In this opening chapter of his

Gospel he gives us some of the most amazing revelation about this light that came into the

world on that first Christmas. The first thing we want to look at is-

I. THE WONDER OF HIS LIGHT.

John makes some statements here about Jesus that are as mysterious and beyond

comprehension as physical light is to science. Light is the very essence of science and

everything that is wondrous about science revolves around light. Science and theology have

this in common for all theology also revolves around light.

In verse 4 John says, the life of Jesus was the light of men, and then in verse 9 he says, the

true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. Later in John, Jesus says,

I am the light of the world. The more you know about the wonders of light, the more you

know about the wonder of God's Christmas light-His only begotten Son. Light and Jesus

have so much in common. It is as if light is an expression of His image. For centuries

scientists debated the nature of light just as theologians debated the nature of Christ. Was

light a wave or a particle? It was so hard to decide because light was so creative it could be

either. In 1905 Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize for his paper on light. He proved that

the whole controversy over light was nonsense for light did not have to be one or the other. It

could be and it was, both. Light, he proved, has a dual nature.

So also, theologians have debated the issue-was Jesus God or man? Oceans of ink have

been used on both sides. But the Bible makes it clear that this too is nonsense. Jesus, like

light, has a dual nature. He is not God or man but both God and man. The Word who was

God became flesh and lived among us. Just as scientists had to face up to the reality that light

has a dual nature which is contradictory, so theologians had to face up to the reality that the

light of the world is both God and man. It may not be easy to grasp but light does not have to

be logical. It is the absolute of science and theology and man has to bow to it's power to be

dual in nature.

The very first thing that God called good was light. He began the process of creation of all

order by saying, let there be light. Then He said the light was good. Everything else that He

made He made in the light and He made all life dependent upon light. Christmas marks the