The Light No Darkness Can Overcome
Jesus Christ is the Light of the world, the Light no darkness can overcome. For the Life and the Love of the Father are in Him, and with such divine Love He has manifested Himself on earth, that you might have that Life with Him forever, body and soul, with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
In the incarnate Son of God you see what otherwise cannot be seen. In the Son of St. Mary you see God, and you know God as He truly is. In His very Flesh and Blood, you know and receive the works of God, which are grace and truth. For in His Flesh all of Creation is perfect and complete. So are you also redeemed from the darkness of death and sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus Christ is the Propitiation for all your sins, and not for your sins only, but for the sins of the whole world. That Gospel is the Light that scatters the darkness and shatters all the works of the devil — because the sacrifice of Christ, the Son of God, for the salvation of sinners, accomplishes the good and gracious will of God and makes known the Father to all the children of men. In this the Name of God is glorified and hallowed among us, and His Kingdom comes to us from heaven.
To know God rightly is to know this Love of the Father in Christ Jesus, and to be sanctified by His Spirit through His forgiveness of all your sins. As all of this is now revealed and given to you through the Word of the Gospel, so do you have peace in place of despair, and life instead of death. For not only is God with you in Christ Jesus, but He is for you, He is on your side. He is here to help you, because He loves you. His life and death and resurrection — in His own Body of flesh and blood like yours — are the guarantee of that divine Love which was, and is, and is to come.
This is your Light in the darkness. This is how you get your bearings, so that you know who you are, and where you are, and where you are going, and how to get there. For knowing God as your Savior in Christ Jesus, you have Life with Him forever. Everything else takes its cues from that.
So, then, by His Word and Holy Spirit, live that divine Life which is yours in the incarnate Son of God. Walk in the Light which shines upon you in His Gospel. Which means, first of all, that you give careful attention to His Word, since that is where and how the Life of Christ is set before you.
Blessed are your ears, which hear the reading and preaching of the Holy Scriptures. And blessed are you when the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ gives to you His Holy Spirit, so that, by His grace, you believe His Holy Word and live according to it.
Faith thus follows after Christ Jesus in His Word — and love follows after faith in Christ.
That is how you walk in the Light, namely, by listening to and learning from the Word of Christ, so that you might thereby live and love as He does.
Open your ears, therefore, to hear and heed His Word. That is how you keep your eyes on Jesus and follow after Him as a disciple, for His Word to you is your Light in the darkness.
Look neither to the right nor to the left, and do not turn around to look behind you, but keep moving forward in faith. I do not mean that you should forget what the Lord your God has done and said and given in the past, but do not linger on your own past works and accomplishments, as though your life were there, in days of glory come and gone. Leave the past behind in repentance and forgiveness, and praise God for the promise of His mercy and the hope of the Resurrection.
Do not look sideways at your neighbor with envy and jealousy, nor compare and compete with your neighbor, as though he were your opponent or your enemy. But consider the people around you with the holy compassion of Christ. Care for them in love and with forgiveness for their sins. Do so, especially, within your own place in life, on the path to which the Lord Jesus calls you.
To turn aside or depart from that path is to wander away from the Light, to walk in the darkness. Then you will surely stumble and fall — and do not suppose that you will manage anything else.
Child of God, do not sin. For in such darkness there is only death and despair. Do not scheme and strive to light your own way, as though to get life for yourself by your own designs and ingenuity. And do not abandon the faith and fellowship of God for the friendship of this fallen world.
But here is how you shall live. Do your duty, according to God’s command and your neighbor’s need. That is to exercise the faith and love that you find in Christ Jesus. And be content with what you have been given, in the confidence that God who loves you has given His only-begotten Son to die for you, and has also raised Him from the dead, that you might have all good things in Him.
In the Resurrection of Christ Jesus, in His eternal great High Priesthood as your Savior, you now live with Him by faith in the presence of His God and Father. That is your “royal priesthood,” which is carried out within your own particular place in life, whether that be in service to a ripe old age, or by way of an early martyrdom; whether it be in Jerusalem, Athens, Ephesus, or Rome.
Wherever God has put you in this body and life on earth, love your neighbor there, with the means that God the Lord has entrusted to your stewardship. Indeed, it is the chief purpose of your time, treasures, and talents that you glorify the Name of the Lord by using whatever He has given you to love and serve your neighbor. You are quite safe to do so, because the Lord Himself provides for you, in love, all that you need and far more than you could ever ask or hope or imagine.
Instead of seeking to get and to keep whatever you can for yourself, freely give to your neighbor what you have freely received by the grace of God from His generous and open hand.
That is what St. John the Apostle and his fellow Apostles have done; and special thanks and praise to God for the holy Evangelists, who have recorded for the Church the words and deeds of Christ our Savior. What they received, they have also given; and they were not emptied or undone by doing so, but filled up and glorified by the Son of God. That is how it goes with the good gifts of God; as with loaves and fishes, the more they are divided and shared, the more they are increased.
So has St. John written what he himself saw and heard and touched — for the sake of the reading and the hearing of the Church on earth, even to the close of the age — and so also here for you.
In the preaching of this Apostolic Word — as in the Flesh and Blood of Christ, given and poured out for you and for the many — the Life of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is manifested.
This proclamation of God is an admonition and a warning, to be sure, which calls you to repent; to turn away from your sins, from darkness, and from death; to cease doing what is wrong, and to begin doing what is right. But the Word of the Apostles is not a scolding or a threat. It is the very Word of God, in which the Gospel predominates because it reveals the very heart of God in Christ.
St. John writes to you, in order that you may be set free from sin, not through your own works and righteousness, but through your Advocate with the Father, who is Jesus Christ the Righteous.
The Apostles and Evangelists write, so that you may be set free from death, and that you may have Life in Jesus through faith in His forgiveness of all your sins.
That is the great joy of St. John and of all the holy Apostles, that you should have fellowship with them in this Word that has been written. Imagine that! As we rejoice in the fellowship of the Apostles, so do they rejoice in you, who believe and live in Jesus by their Word. And not only that, but your fellowship with the Apostles is the fellowship of the Holy Triune God, whereby you also now live and abide with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ, and with the Holy Spirit.
In order for that to be true — and it is most certainly true — it must be as St. John has testified, that everything he witnessed, and all that he received from Jesus, he has conveyed to you with this Word he has written. It is more than history and information. It is the ongoing continuation of all that Jesus began to do and preach from the beginning unto the ends of the earth. That is why the whole world is now filled with this Word of Christ, and even the whole world cannot contain it.
Beloved disciple of Jesus, what St. John saw with his eyes, and looked upon, and touched with his hands, is here given and poured out for you. Recline here upon Body of the Lord who loves you at His Supper, and know that in His Flesh and Blood you are safe in the bosom of the Father, because the Blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses you from sin and releases you from death. For where there is forgiveness, as there is forgiveness for you here, there you shall not die but live.
That is the true Light which shines for you in the darkness, the Light no darkness can overcome.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.