©2006 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

04-23-06

Darkness and Light

4/23/06 Darkness And Light

JOH 1:5, 9-14 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

We are returning to our study of the Gospel of John today.

But hopefully we’re going to do a good deal more than that.

Hopefully we’re also going to return to our study of life -

real life,

they way things really are.

I know we spend most of our hectic days

believing we are living real life,

seeing the world as it really is,

trying our best to cope with it,

but that is not as true as we often believe.

You see, there is a thin veneer covering this world in which we live.

It’s a false facade

designed to hide us from the truth of what’s really taking place.

This facade differs in detail from culture to culture,

but it’s underlying components remain the same.

In our culture the facade can be seen everywhere -

whenever we turn on the television,

or listen to the news,

or watch a movie,

or walk into Fred Meyers it’s there.

This facade is skillfully crafted,

designed to answer what we are led to believe

are all of the important questions of life for us.

It tells us who matters most in our society

and who matters very little.

The facade tells us how to recognize the really important people.

We recognize them on the basis of the positions they hold in society

or the possessions they claim as their own,

or on the basis of how they look,

or what skills they have,

or how well they use words,

or how high they score on an IQ test.

It’s all part of the facade surrounding us,

part of what we are told determines our value, our importance, our place.

And there’s more, lots more to this facade as well.

The facade also tells us which events matter on a day to day basis

and which do not.

The really big events,

the ones that matter the most

are reported to the entire nation on the evening news

or printed in papers and magazines so we can read all about them.

I know of an event that took place this past week in our community,

an event in which God Himself,

the Creator of all that is,

directly intervened in the internal workings of a government agency.

A boy who, for four months, had been hoping and planning

to join the mission trip to Mexico

was told two weeks ago by that government agency

that he would not be permitted to go.

His mom talked to the agency repeatedly without success.

And then a few of us appealed to a higher authority.

We prayed.

And then Tuesday morning his mom received a phone call from the agency

stating that they were reversing their decision

and they were granting the boy permission to go.

It was one of those agencies

that never reverses anything for anyone.

And yet,

as a direct result of His response to several people’s prayers,

God intervened,

and caused some people who never change their minds

to reverse their position.

Only a few people will ever know what happened or why.

It will certainly never make the evening news,

or the local paper.

By the value system of the facade in which we live,

neither that boy nor that altered decision have any significant value whatsoever.

And yet to God, who never ever takes His cues from the evening news,

this boy and the events taking place in his young life were highly significant,

in fact sufficiently significant for Him to personally, directly intervene in human affairs.

But because the facade is so all-inclusive,

and so deeply ingrained in our thinking,

in our lives,

we only rarely see beyond it

into the world as it really is.

I’ve thought a lot about that event this past week

and I have to admit that I find it truly amazing.

It has helped me see so clearly

the massive difference between the real world

and the facade that covers it.

Here was an event that God Himself considered to be of such significance

that He directly intervened in the outcome.

In a sane world,

a correct world

the headlines in the Clarion on Wednesday morning would have read,

“GOD INTERVENES ON BOY’S BEHALF”.

Yet within this facade in which we are immersed,

almost no one will ever know, or care.

And there is so much more to this facade as well.

It not only tells us which events and which people are important

and which are not,

but it also tells us where happiness can be found.

One of the things it tells us with absolute certainty

is that there is a direct link between our happiness and the things we possess.

It tells us, for example,

that new things are almost certainly guaranteed to bring us happiness -

new clothes,

a new TV,

a new car or a new house -

all of these are certain to increase our happiness level,

(according to this facade in which we live).

And even though this facade has never kept its promises to us in the past,

and even though there has never been anything we’ve ever wanted that,

after we got it has had the power to make us truly happy forever,

still it tells us that the only problem is that we wanted the wrong thing

and the next time... the next time it will work -

the next time when we get whatever it is we want

it really will fill the void within.

Sandee and I like to watch HGTV,

the Home and Garden Network.

I suppose it’s an old people thing.

Each year HGTV gives away

and incredible new home worth several million dollars.

Sandee and I watched the program in which the network took us on an extended tour of this new house,

and as soon as we saw the program

we just knew we would be much happier

if we were to win that house.

So each morning for the next several weeks

I began my computer day

by going to their web site so that I could enter the contest one more time.

(You could only enter once every 24 yours.)

I even set the HGTV site as my home page.

The house was fully furnished

so when we won

we were going to go through the house and take all the stuff we really liked,

and then put the house itself up for sale.

We’d sell it really cheap

so it would sell fast,

and then we’d put the money away so that I could retire someday.

It seemed like a really good plan to us,

and we were both just certain that we’d be lots happier if we won,

but clearly the Lord saw it differently

because we didn’t win.

But that’s what this facade does -

it tells us where happiness can be found,

and then sometimes if we’re not aware of the lies,

if we don’t get what we think we need

this facade will even turn around and tell us it’s God’s fault we didn’t get it,

it’s God’s fault we don’t have

what we really need in order to be happy.

ROM 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

PSA 84:11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

There are lots and lots of other things offered to us by this facade as well.

The facade tells us

that people do bad things because they are ignorant,

and if they were just properly educated

then they would stop doing the bad things they’re doing.

Of course there are within our society

some very highly educated people

who do some very, very bad things,

but still ignorance is considered to be the chief culprit

when it comes to most of the wrong actions of those around us.

And this facade also tells us that another crucial key to changing society

is to write more and better laws.

Stronger crime bills will reduce the amount of crime

and stronger illegal drug bills will stop illegal drugs.

It hasn’t worked so far, of course,

but perhaps it’s just because we haven’t yet worded the laws correctly.

It is a truly remarkable facade in which we live,

one that seems to answer all of the questions of life.

And when we enter this world

we all accept it,

and follow it,

and give our lives to it,

and then wonder why we all continue to live out our lives of quit desperation.

But then, with every one of us,

sometimes at the time when we least expect it,

something will happen to pierce that facade.

Or, as John so skillfully says it,

the light shines in the darkness.

For, you see, that is exactly what Christ was doing

when He entered our world in human form.

He was ripping holes in the facade.

He was blasting holes in it

in a way that has forced all of us ever since

to see the truth,

the way things really are.

We have seen already in our study of the Gospel of John

the way in which John at times takes an entire world of truth

and captures it in a single word -

“In the beginning was the WORD...”

“In Him was LIFE...”

“He is the LIGHT of the world...”

Well, he does it again in the 5^th verse of this first chapter.

He takes this facade, this veneer we’ve been talking about

and captures the whole thing once again in a single word.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

That word “darkness”

is a word that perfectly captures the heart of that facade.

You see, just as with physical darkness,

this facade around us

prevents us from seeing what really is.

And in that single remarkable sentence,

“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it...”,

John also sets the stage for two things.

First of all

he sets the stage for what we will see unfolding in the pages that follow -

this intense warfare that raged between light and darkness,

between facade and reality,

during the few years that Christ was present with us.

And second,

he sets the stage for what we see happening

in each of our lives ever since,

this divinely generated warfare in our own lives,

a warfare in which our God

seeks to pierce this facade around us

in a way that confronts each of us with the world as it really is.

But let’s start first of all with the statement itself.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The light, of course, is Jesus Christ.

It is God’s revelation of Himself in human form.

And John tells us that when this facade in which we live

is confronted with this Light,

the facade simply doesn’t get it.

It doesn’t understand.

It doesn’t understand

because it doesn’t want to understand,

because it’s very existence depends upon it not understanding.

When Christ was here personally,

and the facade encasing the world in which He lived

was confronted with Him,

and with the light, and truth, and love that He brought into this world,

the only choice the leaders of that world had

was one of seeking to destroy Him

because He threatened their very existence

and they knew they could not control Him,

or reshape Him after the form they wanted Him to take.

They tried, of course.

They tried to discredit Him

by spreading roomers that he was “born of fornication”,

letting people know

that they had it on very reliable sources

that He was conceived before Mary and Joseph were married.

They tried to discredit Him

on the basis of His actions,

pointing out again and again

that He consistently violated the sacred rules governing the Sabbath Day,

and that He openly associated Himself

with prostitutes,

and drunkards,

and gluttons,

and those within the Jewish society who had sold out their own countrymen to the hated Romans

just so they could line their own pockets with gold.

But those who were close to Him

saw the truth,

they saw the light.

They heard His words,

and they saw His actions,

and they experienced His amazing love for them,

and all the smear campaigns in the world

could not change the reality of who He really was.

So for them,

for those who lived in and loved the darkness of that first century facade,

the only answer was to destroy Him.

Today it’s not that way.

Today when the light shines in the darkness,

the darkness responds by reshaping Him into religion.

Religion, you see, is fine.

It fits well into the darkness,

into the facade.

In fact religion makes the facade seem all the more true.

It turns the light into a form,

it turns Jesus Christ into a ritual,

it turns the truth into a routine,

into a form that can be learned and perpetuated,

a form that makes us feel holy,

and protected,

and secure with God when we fulfill it,

while at the same time

doing no damage to the facade in which we live.

The specifics of the form very widely from group to group.

For some it’s learning how to talk the Christian talk

and sing the Christian songs,

and attend the Christian meetings with the right regularity.

For others it’s memorizing liturgies,

and observing holy days,

and fulfilling the prescribed rituals handed down from the fathers.

But no matter what form the religion takes

it’s always completely compatible

with the darkness,

with the facade in which we live.

But we matter far to much to our God,

and His love for each of us is far too deep, too real

for Him to allow the darkness to blind us forever to the truth.

And so, after John tells us that ...the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it,

he then goes on to reveal to us the rest of the story.

He says, “There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”

Which, in the terms I’m using this morning,

means that there will be a point in the life of every one of us

at which Jesus Christ will rip a hole through the veneer,

through the facade of our lives,

a hole big enough so that we can peak through

and gain a glimpse of the world as it really is.

That’s why some of you are here this morning.

God has been skillfully moving the pieces of your life around in such a way

as to finally make it possible

for Him to rip a whole in the facade

and give you a glimpse of the world as it really is.

I don’t know what He used to accomplish that work in your life,

and it doesn’t really matter.

Sometimes it’s pain,

or loss,

or fear,

or anxiety,

or failure,

or some other difficult situation

that has forced us to realize that this facade in which we live

never keeps its promises to us.

Maybe He simply created within you a hunger for something more,

an emptiness within you

that nothing in the world around you seems to be able to fill.

Maybe He’s used another person to tear the hole,

someone who possesses a quality of life you’ve never seen before

and you want it.

Or maybe He just brought someone into your life who seems to love you for no reason,

and you’ve discovered that this person also loves Jesus.

But whatever He’s used,

the result is the same -

you’ve discovered that all is not as it seems.

You’ve gained a glimpse of a world you never even knew existed,

and now, having seen it,

you can’t go back to the way things use to be.

And the light shines in the darkness...

When John tells us about that process

as it unfolded in his world,

at first the picture he paints for us

is dismal almost beyond belief.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

That single statement

expresses with such perfect clarity

how absolute the darkness is that blankets our world.

Here was our Creator God

literally living with us

and no one knew who He was.

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

And if that was where John stopped,

it would be tragic beyond words.

But it’s his next words

that change everything forevermore.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And here’s what I need to prepare your for.

If you have seen the rip in the facade around you,

if you’ve gained that glimpse

or maybe just a hint

of the real world that lies beneath,

with that knowledge

there always comes a choice,

a defining point at which we must choose.

If we want to,

we can frantically look for some tape,

and scissors,

and maybe some paint or felt tip makers

and then try to patch up that rip

and pretend it never happened,

pretend that the other world we saw,

that real world isn’t really there.

But if we have the courage to face the truth,

and if we look a little more closely

what we will see is not another system,

what we will see is Jesus Christ Himself.

And what He asks from us

is that we let Him into our world on His terms.

But as many as received Him...

And I need to be real clear here

that this is all He asks of us.

He’s not asking us rebuild our lives.

He’s asking us to let Him in

so that He can do the rebuilding for us,

in us.

And if we choose to let Him in,

He will do just that.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And His promise to us

is that, if we let Him in,

He will literally recreate us at the deepest level of our being.

And then, step by step,

He will begin to give us eyes to see this world as we’ve never seen it before,

the real world as really is. 4/23/06 Darkness And Light

JOH 1:5, 9-14 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

We are returning to our study of the Gospel of John today.

But hopefully we’re going to do a good deal more than that.

Hopefully we’re also going to return to our study of life -

real life,

they way things really are.

I know we spend most of our hectic days

believing we are living real life,

seeing the world as it really is,

trying our best to cope with it,

but that is not as true as we often believe.

You see, there is a thin veneer covering this world in which we live.

It’s a false facade

designed to hide us from the truth of what’s really taking place.

This facade differs in detail from culture to culture,

but it’s underlying components remain the same.

In our culture the facade can be seen everywhere -

whenever we turn on the television,

or listen to the news,

or watch a movie,

or walk into Fred Meyers it’s there.

This facade is skillfully crafted,

designed to answer what we are led to believe

are all of the important questions of life for us.

It tells us who matters most in our society

and who matters very little.

The facade tells us how to recognize the really important people.

We recognize them on the basis of the positions they hold in society

or the possessions they claim as their own,

or on the basis of how they look,

or what skills they have,

or how well they use words,

or how high they score on an IQ test.

It’s all part of the facade surrounding us,

part of what we are told determines our value, our importance, our place.

And there’s more, lots more to this facade as well.

The facade also tells us which events matter on a day to day basis

and which do not.

The really big events,

the ones that matter the most

are reported to the entire nation on the evening news

or printed in papers and magazines so we can read all about them.

I know of an event that took place this past week in our community,

an event in which God Himself,

the Creator of all that is,

directly intervened in the internal workings of a government agency.

A boy who, for four months, had been hoping and planning

to join the mission trip to Mexico

was told two weeks ago by that government agency

that he would not be permitted to go.

His mom talked to the agency repeatedly without success.

And then a few of us appealed to a higher authority.

We prayed.

And then Tuesday morning his mom received a phone call from the agency

stating that they were reversing their decision

and they were granting the boy permission to go.

It was one of those agencies

that never reverses anything for anyone.

And yet,

as a direct result of His response to several people’s prayers,

God intervened,

and caused some people who never change their minds

to reverse their position.

Only a few people will ever know what happened or why.

It will certainly never make the evening news,

or the local paper.

By the value system of the facade in which we live,

neither that boy nor that altered decision have any significant value whatsoever.

And yet to God, who never ever takes His cues from the evening news,

this boy and the events taking place in his young life were highly significant,

in fact sufficiently significant for Him to personally, directly intervene in human affairs.

But because the facade is so all-inclusive,

and so deeply ingrained in our thinking,

in our lives,

we only rarely see beyond it

into the world as it really is.

I’ve thought a lot about that event this past week

and I have to admit that I find it truly amazing.

It has helped me see so clearly

the massive difference between the real world

and the facade that covers it.

Here was an event that God Himself considered to be of such significance

that He directly intervened in the outcome.

In a sane world,

a correct world

the headlines in the Clarion on Wednesday morning would have read,

“GOD INTERVENES ON BOY’S BEHALF”.

Yet within this facade in which we are immersed,

almost no one will ever know, or care.

And there is so much more to this facade as well.

It not only tells us which events and which people are important

and which are not,

but it also tells us where happiness can be found.

One of the things it tells us with absolute certainty

is that there is a direct link between our happiness and the things we possess.

It tells us, for example,

that new things are almost certainly guaranteed to bring us happiness -

new clothes,

a new TV,

a new car or a new house -

all of these are certain to increase our happiness level,

(according to this facade in which we live).

And even though this facade has never kept its promises to us in the past,

and even though there has never been anything we’ve ever wanted that,

after we got it has had the power to make us truly happy forever,

still it tells us that the only problem is that we wanted the wrong thing

and the next time... the next time it will work -

the next time when we get whatever it is we want

it really will fill the void within.

Sandee and I like to watch HGTV,

the Home and Garden Network.

I suppose it’s an old people thing.

Each year HGTV gives away

and incredible new home worth several million dollars.

Sandee and I watched the program in which the network took us on an extended tour of this new house,

and as soon as we saw the program

we just knew we would be much happier

if we were to win that house.

So each morning for the next several weeks

I began my computer day

by going to their web site so that I could enter the contest one more time.

(You could only enter once every 24 yours.)

I even set the HGTV site as my home page.

The house was fully furnished

so when we won

we were going to go through the house and take all the stuff we really liked,

and then put the house itself up for sale.

We’d sell it really cheap

so it would sell fast,

and then we’d put the money away so that I could retire someday.

It seemed like a really good plan to us,

and we were both just certain that we’d be lots happier if we won,

but clearly the Lord saw it differently

because we didn’t win.

But that’s what this facade does -

it tells us where happiness can be found,

and then sometimes if we’re not aware of the lies,

if we don’t get what we think we need

this facade will even turn around and tell us it’s God’s fault we didn’t get it,

it’s God’s fault we don’t have

what we really need in order to be happy.

ROM 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

PSA 84:11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

There are lots and lots of other things offered to us by this facade as well.

The facade tells us

that people do bad things because they are ignorant,

and if they were just properly educated

then they would stop doing the bad things they’re doing.

Of course there are within our society

some very highly educated people

who do some very, very bad things,

but still ignorance is considered to be the chief culprit

when it comes to most of the wrong actions of those around us.

And this facade also tells us that another crucial key to changing society

is to write more and better laws.

Stronger crime bills will reduce the amount of crime

and stronger illegal drug bills will stop illegal drugs.

It hasn’t worked so far, of course,

but perhaps it’s just because we haven’t yet worded the laws correctly.

It is a truly remarkable facade in which we live,

one that seems to answer all of the questions of life.

And when we enter this world

we all accept it,

and follow it,

and give our lives to it,

and then wonder why we all continue to live out our lives of quit desperation.

But then, with every one of us,

sometimes at the time when we least expect it,

something will happen to pierce that facade.

Or, as John so skillfully says it,

the light shines in the darkness.

For, you see, that is exactly what Christ was doing

when He entered our world in human form.

He was ripping holes in the facade.

He was blasting holes in it

in a way that has forced all of us ever since

to see the truth,

the way things really are.

We have seen already in our study of the Gospel of John

the way in which John at times takes an entire world of truth

and captures it in a single word -

“In the beginning was the WORD...”

“In Him was LIFE...”

“He is the LIGHT of the world...”

Well, he does it again in the 5^th verse of this first chapter.

He takes this facade, this veneer we’ve been talking about

and captures the whole thing once again in a single word.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

That word “darkness”

is a word that perfectly captures the heart of that facade.

You see, just as with physical darkness,

this facade around us

prevents us from seeing what really is.

And in that single remarkable sentence,

“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it...”,

John also sets the stage for two things.

First of all

he sets the stage for what we will see unfolding in the pages that follow -

this intense warfare that raged between light and darkness,

between facade and reality,

during the few years that Christ was present with us.

And second,

he sets the stage for what we see happening

in each of our lives ever since,

this divinely generated warfare in our own lives,

a warfare in which our God

seeks to pierce this facade around us

in a way that confronts each of us with the world as it really is.

But let’s start first of all with the statement itself.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The light, of course, is Jesus Christ.

It is God’s revelation of Himself in human form.

And John tells us that when this facade in which we live

is confronted with this Light,

the facade simply doesn’t get it.

It doesn’t understand.

It doesn’t understand

because it doesn’t want to understand,

because it’s very existence depends upon it not understanding.

When Christ was here personally,

and the facade encasing the world in which He lived

was confronted with Him,

and with the light, and truth, and love that He brought into this world,

the only choice the leaders of that world had

was one of seeking to destroy Him

because He threatened their very existence

and they knew they could not control Him,

or reshape Him after the form they wanted Him to take.

They tried, of course.

They tried to discredit Him

by spreading roomers that he was “born of fornication”,

letting people know

that they had it on very reliable sources

that He was conceived before Mary and Joseph were married.

They tried to discredit Him

on the basis of His actions,

pointing out again and again

that He consistently violated the sacred rules governing the Sabbath Day,

and that He openly associated Himself

with prostitutes,

and drunkards,

and gluttons,

and those within the Jewish society who had sold out their own countrymen to the hated Romans

just so they could line their own pockets with gold.

But those who were close to Him

saw the truth,

they saw the light.

They heard His words,

and they saw His actions,

and they experienced His amazing love for them,

and all the smear campaigns in the world

could not change the reality of who He really was.

So for them,

for those who lived in and loved the darkness of that first century facade,

the only answer was to destroy Him.

Today it’s not that way.

Today when the light shines in the darkness,

the darkness responds by reshaping Him into religion.

Religion, you see, is fine.

It fits well into the darkness,

into the facade.

In fact religion makes the facade seem all the more true.

It turns the light into a form,

it turns Jesus Christ into a ritual,

it turns the truth into a routine,

into a form that can be learned and perpetuated,

a form that makes us feel holy,

and protected,

and secure with God when we fulfill it,

while at the same time

doing no damage to the facade in which we live.

The specifics of the form very widely from group to group.

For some it’s learning how to talk the Christian talk

and sing the Christian songs,

and attend the Christian meetings with the right regularity.

For others it’s memorizing liturgies,

and observing holy days,

and fulfilling the prescribed rituals handed down from the fathers.

But no matter what form the religion takes

it’s always completely compatible

with the darkness,

with the facade in which we live.

But we matter far to much to our God,

and His love for each of us is far too deep, too real

for Him to allow the darkness to blind us forever to the truth.

And so, after John tells us that ...the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it,

he then goes on to reveal to us the rest of the story.

He says, “There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”

Which, in the terms I’m using this morning,

means that there will be a point in the life of every one of us

at which Jesus Christ will rip a hole through the veneer,

through the facade of our lives,

a hole big enough so that we can peak through

and gain a glimpse of the world as it really is.

That’s why some of you are hear this morning.

God has been skillfully moving the pieces of your life around in such a way

as to finally make it possible

for Him to rip a whole in the facade

and give you a glimpse of the world as it really is.

I don’t know what He used to accomplish that work in your life,

and it doesn’t really matter.

Sometimes it’s pain,

or loss,

or fear,

or anxiety,

or failure,

or some other difficult situation

that has forced us to realize that this facade in which we live

never keeps its promises to us.

Maybe He simply created within you a hunger for something more,

an emptiness within you

that nothing in the world around you seems to be able to fill.

Maybe He’s used another person to tear the hole,

someone who possesses a quality of life you’ve never seen before

and you want it.

Or maybe He just brought someone into your life who seems to love you for no reason,

and you’ve discovered that this person also loves Jesus.

But whatever He’s used,

the result is the same -

you’ve discovered that all is not as it seems.

You’ve gained a glimpse of a world you never even knew existed,

and now, having seen it,

you can’t go back to the way things use to be.

And the light shines in the darkness...

When John tells us about that process

as it unfolded in his world,

at first the picture he paints for us

is dismal almost beyond belief.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

That single statement

expresses with such perfect clarity

how absolute the darkness is that blankets our world.

Here was our Creator God

literally living with us

and no one knew who He was.

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

And if that was where John stopped,

it would be tragic beyond words.

But it’s his next words

that change everything forevermore.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And here’s what I need to prepare your for.

If you have seen the rip in the facade around you,

if you’ve gained that glimpse

or maybe just a hint

of the real world that lies beneath,

with that knowledge

there always comes a choice,

a defining point at which we must choose.

If we want to,

we can frantically look for some tape,

and scissors,

and maybe some paint or felt tip makers

and then try to patch up that rip

and pretend it never happened,

pretend that the other world we saw,

that real world isn’t really there.

But if we have the courage to face the truth,

and if we look a little more closely

what we will see is not another system,

what we will see is Jesus Christ Himself.

And what He asks from us

is that we let Him into our world on His terms.

But as many as received Him...

And I need to be real clear here

that this is all He asks of us.

He’s not asking us rebuild our lives.

He’s asking us to let Him in

so that He can do the rebuilding for us,

in us.

And if we choose to let Him in,

He will do just that.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And His promise to us

is that, if we let Him in,

He will literally recreate us at the deepest level of our being.

And then, step by step,

He will begin to give us eyes to see this world as we’ve never seen it before,

the real world as really is. 4/23/06 Darkness And Light

JOH 1:5, 9-14 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

We are returning to our study of the Gospel of John today.

But hopefully we’re going to do a good deal more than that.

Hopefully we’re also going to return to our study of life -

real life,

they way things really are.

I know we spend most of our hectic days

believing we are living real life,

seeing the world as it really is,

trying our best to cope with it,

but that is not as true as we often believe.

You see, there is a thin veneer covering this world in which we live.

It’s a false facade

designed to hide us from the truth of what’s really taking place.

This facade differs in detail from culture to culture,

but it’s underlying components remain the same.

In our culture the facade can be seen everywhere -

whenever we turn on the television,

or listen to the news,

or watch a movie,

or walk into Fred Meyers it’s there.

This facade is skillfully crafted,

designed to answer what we are led to believe

are all of the important questions of life for us.

It tells us who matters most in our society

and who matters very little.

The facade tells us how to recognize the really important people.

We recognize them on the basis of the positions they hold in society

or the possessions they claim as their own,

or on the basis of how they look,

or what skills they have,

or how well they use words,

or how high they score on an IQ test.

It’s all part of the facade surrounding us,

part of what we are told determines our value, our importance, our place.

And there’s more, lots more to this facade as well.

The facade also tells us which events matter on a day to day basis

and which do not.

The really big events,

the ones that matter the most

are reported to the entire nation on the evening news

or printed in papers and magazines so we can read all about them.

I know of an event that took place this past week in our community,

an event in which God Himself,

the Creator of all that is,

directly intervened in the internal workings of a government agency.

A boy who, for four months, had been hoping and planning

to join the mission trip to Mexico

was told two weeks ago by that government agency

that he would not be permitted to go.

His mom talked to the agency repeatedly without success.

And then a few of us appealed to a higher authority.

We prayed.

And then Tuesday morning his mom received a phone call from the agency

stating that they were reversing their decision

and they were granting the boy permission to go.

It was one of those agencies

that never reverses anything for anyone.

And yet,

as a direct result of His response to several people’s prayers,

God intervened,

and caused some people who never change their minds

to reverse their position.

Only a few people will ever know what happened or why.

It will certainly never make the evening news,

or the local paper.

By the value system of the facade in which we live,

neither that boy nor that altered decision have any significant value whatsoever.

And yet to God, who never ever takes His cues from the evening news,

this boy and the events taking place in his young life were highly significant,

in fact sufficiently significant for Him to personally, directly intervene in human affairs.

But because the facade is so all-inclusive,

and so deeply ingrained in our thinking,

in our lives,

we only rarely see beyond it

into the world as it really is.

I’ve thought a lot about that event this past week

and I have to admit that I find it truly amazing.

It has helped me see so clearly

the massive difference between the real world

and the facade that covers it.

Here was an event that God Himself considered to be of such significance

that He directly intervened in the outcome.

In a sane world,

a correct world

the headlines in the Clarion on Wednesday morning would have read,

“GOD INTERVENES ON BOY’S BEHALF”.

Yet within this facade in which we are immersed,

almost no one will ever know, or care.

And there is so much more to this facade as well.

It not only tells us which events and which people are important

and which are not,

but it also tells us where happiness can be found.

One of the things it tells us with absolute certainty

is that there is a direct link between our happiness and the things we possess.

It tells us, for example,

that new things are almost certainly guaranteed to bring us happiness -

new clothes,

a new TV,

a new car or a new house -

all of these are certain to increase our happiness level,

(according to this facade in which we live).

And even though this facade has never kept its promises to us in the past,

and even though there has never been anything we’ve ever wanted that,

after we got it has had the power to make us truly happy forever,

still it tells us that the only problem is that we wanted the wrong thing

and the next time... the next time it will work -

the next time when we get whatever it is we want

it really will fill the void within.

Sandee and I like to watch HGTV,

the Home and Garden Network.

I suppose it’s an old people thing.

Each year HGTV gives away

and incredible new home worth several million dollars.

Sandee and I watched the program in which the network took us on an extended tour of this new house,

and as soon as we saw the program

we just knew we would be much happier

if we were to win that house.

So each morning for the next several weeks

I began my computer day

by going to their web site so that I could enter the contest one more time.

(You could only enter once every 24 yours.)

I even set the HGTV site as my home page.

The house was fully furnished

so when we won

we were going to go through the house and take all the stuff we really liked,

and then put the house itself up for sale.

We’d sell it really cheap

so it would sell fast,

and then we’d put the money away so that I could retire someday.

It seemed like a really good plan to us,

and we were both just certain that we’d be lots happier if we won,

but clearly the Lord saw it differently

because we didn’t win.

But that’s what this facade does -

it tells us where happiness can be found,

and then sometimes if we’re not aware of the lies,

if we don’t get what we think we need

this facade will even turn around and tell us it’s God’s fault we didn’t get it,

it’s God’s fault we don’t have

what we really need in order to be happy.

ROM 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

PSA 84:11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

There are lots and lots of other things offered to us by this facade as well.

The facade tells us

that people do bad things because they are ignorant,

and if they were just properly educated

then they would stop doing the bad things they’re doing.

Of course there are within our society

some very highly educated people

who do some very, very bad things,

but still ignorance is considered to be the chief culprit

when it comes to most of the wrong actions of those around us.

And this facade also tells us that another crucial key to changing society

is to write more and better laws.

Stronger crime bills will reduce the amount of crime

and stronger illegal drug bills will stop illegal drugs.

It hasn’t worked so far, of course,

but perhaps it’s just because we haven’t yet worded the laws correctly.

It is a truly remarkable facade in which we live,

one that seems to answer all of the questions of life.

And when we enter this world

we all accept it,

and follow it,

and give our lives to it,

and then wonder why we all continue to live out our lives of quit desperation.

But then, with every one of us,

sometimes at the time when we least expect it,

something will happen to pierce that facade.

Or, as John so skillfully says it,

the light shines in the darkness.

For, you see, that is exactly what Christ was doing

when He entered our world in human form.

He was ripping holes in the facade.

He was blasting holes in it

in a way that has forced all of us ever since

to see the truth,

the way things really are.

We have seen already in our study of the Gospel of John

the way in which John at times takes an entire world of truth

and captures it in a single word -

“In the beginning was the WORD...”

“In Him was LIFE...”

“He is the LIGHT of the world...”

Well, he does it again in the 5^th verse of this first chapter.

He takes this facade, this veneer we’ve been talking about

and captures the whole thing once again in a single word.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

That word “darkness”

is a word that perfectly captures the heart of that facade.

You see, just as with physical darkness,

this facade around us

prevents us from seeing what really is.

And in that single remarkable sentence,

“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it...”,

John also sets the stage for two things.

First of all

he sets the stage for what we will see unfolding in the pages that follow -

this intense warfare that raged between light and darkness,

between facade and reality,

during the few years that Christ was present with us.

And second,

he sets the stage for what we see happening

in each of our lives ever since,

this divinely generated warfare in our own lives,

a warfare in which our God

seeks to pierce this facade around us

in a way that confronts each of us with the world as it really is.

But let’s start first of all with the statement itself.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The light, of course, is Jesus Christ.

It is God’s revelation of Himself in human form.

And John tells us that when this facade in which we live

is confronted with this Light,

the facade simply doesn’t get it.

It doesn’t understand.

It doesn’t understand

because it doesn’t want to understand,

because it’s very existence depends upon it not understanding.

When Christ was here personally,

and the facade encasing the world in which He lived

was confronted with Him,

and with the light, and truth, and love that He brought into this world,

the only choice the leaders of that world had

was one of seeking to destroy Him

because He threatened their very existence

and they knew they could not control Him,

or reshape Him after the form they wanted Him to take.

They tried, of course.

They tried to discredit Him

by spreading roomers that he was “born of fornication”,

letting people know

that they had it on very reliable sources

that He was conceived before Mary and Joseph were married.

They tried to discredit Him

on the basis of His actions,

pointing out again and again

that He consistently violated the sacred rules governing the Sabbath Day,

and that He openly associated Himself

with prostitutes,

and drunkards,

and gluttons,

and those within the Jewish society who had sold out their own countrymen to the hated Romans

just so they could line their own pockets with gold.

But those who were close to Him

saw the truth,

they saw the light.

They heard His words,

and they saw His actions,

and they experienced His amazing love for them,

and all the smear campaigns in the world

could not change the reality of who He really was.

So for them,

for those who lived in and loved the darkness of that first century facade,

the only answer was to destroy Him.

Today it’s not that way.

Today when the light shines in the darkness,

the darkness responds by reshaping Him into religion.

Religion, you see, is fine.

It fits well into the darkness,

into the facade.

In fact religion makes the facade seem all the more true.

It turns the light into a form,

it turns Jesus Christ into a ritual,

it turns the truth into a routine,

into a form that can be learned and perpetuated,

a form that makes us feel holy,

and protected,

and secure with God when we fulfill it,

while at the same time

doing no damage to the facade in which we live.

The specifics of the form very widely from group to group.

For some it’s learning how to talk the Christian talk

and sing the Christian songs,

and attend the Christian meetings with the right regularity.

For others it’s memorizing liturgies,

and observing holy days,

and fulfilling the prescribed rituals handed down from the fathers.

But no matter what form the religion takes

it’s always completely compatible

with the darkness,

with the facade in which we live.

But we matter far to much to our God,

and His love for each of us is far too deep, too real

for Him to allow the darkness to blind us forever to the truth.

And so, after John tells us that ...the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it,

he then goes on to reveal to us the rest of the story.

He says, “There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”

Which, in the terms I’m using this morning,

means that there will be a point in the life of every one of us

at which Jesus Christ will rip a hole through the veneer,

through the facade of our lives,

a hole big enough so that we can peak through

and gain a glimpse of the world as it really is.

That’s why some of you are hear this morning.

God has been skillfully moving the pieces of your life around in such a way

as to finally make it possible

for Him to rip a whole in the facade

and give you a glimpse of the world as it really is.

I don’t know what He used to accomplish that work in your life,

and it doesn’t really matter.

Sometimes it’s pain,

or loss,

or fear,

or anxiety,

or failure,

or some other difficult situation

that has forced us to realize that this facade in which we live

never keeps its promises to us.

Maybe He simply created within you a hunger for something more,

an emptiness within you

that nothing in the world around you seems to be able to fill.

Maybe He’s used another person to tear the hole,

someone who possesses a quality of life you’ve never seen before

and you want it.

Or maybe He just brought someone into your life who seems to love you for no reason,

and you’ve discovered that this person also loves Jesus.

But whatever He’s used,

the result is the same -

you’ve discovered that all is not as it seems.

You’ve gained a glimpse of a world you never even knew existed,

and now, having seen it,

you can’t go back to the way things use to be.

And the light shines in the darkness...

When John tells us about that process

as it unfolded in his world,

at first the picture he paints for us

is dismal almost beyond belief.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

That single statement

expresses with such perfect clarity

how absolute the darkness is that blankets our world.

Here was our Creator God

literally living with us

and no one knew who He was.

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

And if that was where John stopped,

it would be tragic beyond words.

But it’s his next words

that change everything forevermore.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And here’s what I need to prepare your for.

If you have seen the rip in the facade around you,

if you’ve gained that glimpse

or maybe just a hint

of the real world that lies beneath,

with that knowledge

there always comes a choice,

a defining point at which we must choose.

If we want to,

we can frantically look for some tape,

and scissors,

and maybe some paint or felt tip makers

and then try to patch up that rip

and pretend it never happened,

pretend that the other world we saw,

that real world isn’t really there.

But if we have the courage to face the truth,

and if we look a little more closely

what we will see is not another system,

what we will see is Jesus Christ Himself.

And what He asks from us

is that we let Him into our world on His terms.

But as many as received Him...

And I need to be real clear here

that this is all He asks of us.

He’s not asking us rebuild our lives.

He’s asking us to let Him in

so that He can do the rebuilding for us,

in us.

And if we choose to let Him in,

He will do just that.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And His promise to us

is that, if we let Him in,

He will literally recreate us at the deepest level of our being.

And then, step by step,

He will begin to give us eyes to see this world as we’ve never seen it before,

the real world as really is. 4/23/06 Darkness And Light

JOH 1:5, 9-14 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

We are returning to our study of the Gospel of John today.

But hopefully we’re going to do a good deal more than that.

Hopefully we’re also going to return to our study of life -

real life,

they way things really are.

I know we spend most of our hectic days

believing we are living real life,

seeing the world as it really is,

trying our best to cope with it,

but that is not as true as we often believe.

You see, there is a thin veneer covering this world in which we live.

It’s a false facade

designed to hide us from the truth of what’s really taking place.

This facade differs in detail from culture to culture,

but it’s underlying components remain the same.

In our culture the facade can be seen everywhere -

whenever we turn on the television,

or listen to the news,

or watch a movie,

or walk into Fred Meyers it’s there.

This facade is skillfully crafted,

designed to answer what we are led to believe

are all of the important questions of life for us.

It tells us who matters most in our society

and who matters very little.

The facade tells us how to recognize the really important people.

We recognize them on the basis of the positions they hold in society

or the possessions they claim as their own,

or on the basis of how they look,

or what skills they have,

or how well they use words,

or how high they score on an IQ test.

It’s all part of the facade surrounding us,

part of what we are told determines our value, our importance, our place.

And there’s more, lots more to this facade as well.

The facade also tells us which events matter on a day to day basis

and which do not.

The really big events,

the ones that matter the most

are reported to the entire nation on the evening news

or printed in papers and magazines so we can read all about them.

I know of an event that took place this past week in our community,

an event in which God Himself,

the Creator of all that is,

directly intervened in the internal workings of a government agency.

A boy who, for four months, had been hoping and planning

to join the mission trip to Mexico

was told two weeks ago by that government agency

that he would not be permitted to go.

His mom talked to the agency repeatedly without success.

And then a few of us appealed to a higher authority.

We prayed.

And then Tuesday morning his mom received a phone call from the agency

stating that they were reversing their decision

and they were granting the boy permission to go.

It was one of those agencies

that never reverses anything for anyone.

And yet,

as a direct result of His response to several people’s prayers,

God intervened,

and caused some people who never change their minds

to reverse their position.

Only a few people will ever know what happened or why.

It will certainly never make the evening news,

or the local paper.

By the value system of the facade in which we live,

neither that boy nor that altered decision have any significant value whatsoever.

And yet to God, who never ever takes His cues from the evening news,

this boy and the events taking place in his young life were highly significant,

in fact sufficiently significant for Him to personally, directly intervene in human affairs.

But because the facade is so all-inclusive,

and so deeply ingrained in our thinking,

in our lives,

we only rarely see beyond it

into the world as it really is.

I’ve thought a lot about that event this past week

and I have to admit that I find it truly amazing.

It has helped me see so clearly

the massive difference between the real world

and the facade that covers it.

Here was an event that God Himself considered to be of such significance

that He directly intervened in the outcome.

In a sane world,

a correct world

the headlines in the Clarion on Wednesday morning would have read,

“GOD INTERVENES ON BOY’S BEHALF”.

Yet within this facade in which we are immersed,

almost no one will ever know, or care.

And there is so much more to this facade as well.

It not only tells us which events and which people are important

and which are not,

but it also tells us where happiness can be found.

One of the things it tells us with absolute certainty

is that there is a direct link between our happiness and the things we possess.

It tells us, for example,

that new things are almost certainly guaranteed to bring us happiness -

new clothes,

a new TV,

a new car or a new house -

all of these are certain to increase our happiness level,

(according to this facade in which we live).

And even though this facade has never kept its promises to us in the past,

and even though there has never been anything we’ve ever wanted that,

after we got it has had the power to make us truly happy forever,

still it tells us that the only problem is that we wanted the wrong thing

and the next time... the next time it will work -

the next time when we get whatever it is we want

it really will fill the void within.

Sandee and I like to watch HGTV,

the Home and Garden Network.

I suppose it’s an old people thing.

Each year HGTV gives away

and incredible new home worth several million dollars.

Sandee and I watched the program in which the network took us on an extended tour of this new house,

and as soon as we saw the program

we just knew we would be much happier

if we were to win that house.

So each morning for the next several weeks

I began my computer day

by going to their web site so that I could enter the contest one more time.

(You could only enter once every 24 yours.)

I even set the HGTV site as my home page.

The house was fully furnished

so when we won

we were going to go through the house and take all the stuff we really liked,

and then put the house itself up for sale.

We’d sell it really cheap

so it would sell fast,

and then we’d put the money away so that I could retire someday.

It seemed like a really good plan to us,

and we were both just certain that we’d be lots happier if we won,

but clearly the Lord saw it differently

because we didn’t win.

But that’s what this facade does -

it tells us where happiness can be found,

and then sometimes if we’re not aware of the lies,

if we don’t get what we think we need

this facade will even turn around and tell us it’s God’s fault we didn’t get it,

it’s God’s fault we don’t have

what we really need in order to be happy.

ROM 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

PSA 84:11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

There are lots and lots of other things offered to us by this facade as well.

The facade tells us

that people do bad things because they are ignorant,

and if they were just properly educated

then they would stop doing the bad things they’re doing.

Of course there are within our society

some very highly educated people

who do some very, very bad things,

but still ignorance is considered to be the chief culprit

when it comes to most of the wrong actions of those around us.

And this facade also tells us that another crucial key to changing society

is to write more and better laws.

Stronger crime bills will reduce the amount of crime

and stronger illegal drug bills will stop illegal drugs.

It hasn’t worked so far, of course,

but perhaps it’s just because we haven’t yet worded the laws correctly.

It is a truly remarkable facade in which we live,

one that seems to answer all of the questions of life.

And when we enter this world

we all accept it,

and follow it,

and give our lives to it,

and then wonder why we all continue to live out our lives of quit desperation.

But then, with every one of us,

sometimes at the time when we least expect it,

something will happen to pierce that facade.

Or, as John so skillfully says it,

the light shines in the darkness.

For, you see, that is exactly what Christ was doing

when He entered our world in human form.

He was ripping holes in the facade.

He was blasting holes in it

in a way that has forced all of us ever since

to see the truth,

the way things really are.

We have seen already in our study of the Gospel of John

the way in which John at times takes an entire world of truth

and captures it in a single word -

“In the beginning was the WORD...”

“In Him was LIFE...”

“He is the LIGHT of the world...”

Well, he does it again in the 5^th verse of this first chapter.

He takes this facade, this veneer we’ve been talking about

and captures the whole thing once again in a single word.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

That word “darkness”

is a word that perfectly captures the heart of that facade.

You see, just as with physical darkness,

this facade around us

prevents us from seeing what really is.

And in that single remarkable sentence,

“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it...”,

John also sets the stage for two things.

First of all

he sets the stage for what we will see unfolding in the pages that follow -

this intense warfare that raged between light and darkness,

between facade and reality,

during the few years that Christ was present with us.

And second,

he sets the stage for what we see happening

in each of our lives ever since,

this divinely generated warfare in our own lives,

a warfare in which our God

seeks to pierce this facade around us

in a way that confronts each of us with the world as it really is.

But let’s start first of all with the statement itself.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The light, of course, is Jesus Christ.

It is God’s revelation of Himself in human form.

And John tells us that when this facade in which we live

is confronted with this Light,

the facade simply doesn’t get it.

It doesn’t understand.

It doesn’t understand

because it doesn’t want to understand,

because it’s very existence depends upon it not understanding.

When Christ was here personally,

and the facade encasing the world in which He lived

was confronted with Him,

and with the light, and truth, and love that He brought into this world,

the only choice the leaders of that world had

was one of seeking to destroy Him

because He threatened their very existence

and they knew they could not control Him,

or reshape Him after the form they wanted Him to take.

They tried, of course.

They tried to discredit Him

by spreading roomers that he was “born of fornication”,

letting people know

that they had it on very reliable sources

that He was conceived before Mary and Joseph were married.

They tried to discredit Him

on the basis of His actions,

pointing out again and again

that He consistently violated the sacred rules governing the Sabbath Day,

and that He openly associated Himself

with prostitutes,

and drunkards,

and gluttons,

and those within the Jewish society who had sold out their own countrymen to the hated Romans

just so they could line their own pockets with gold.

But those who were close to Him

saw the truth,

they saw the light.

They heard His words,

and they saw His actions,

and they experienced His amazing love for them,

and all the smear campaigns in the world

could not change the reality of who He really was.

So for them,

for those who lived in and loved the darkness of that first century facade,

the only answer was to destroy Him.

Today it’s not that way.

Today when the light shines in the darkness,

the darkness responds by reshaping Him into religion.

Religion, you see, is fine.

It fits well into the darkness,

into the facade.

In fact religion makes the facade seem all the more true.

It turns the light into a form,

it turns Jesus Christ into a ritual,

it turns the truth into a routine,

into a form that can be learned and perpetuated,

a form that makes us feel holy,

and protected,

and secure with God when we fulfill it,

while at the same time

doing no damage to the facade in which we live.

The specifics of the form very widely from group to group.

For some it’s learning how to talk the Christian talk

and sing the Christian songs,

and attend the Christian meetings with the right regularity.

For others it’s memorizing liturgies,

and observing holy days,

and fulfilling the prescribed rituals handed down from the fathers.

But no matter what form the religion takes

it’s always completely compatible

with the darkness,

with the facade in which we live.

But we matter far to much to our God,

and His love for each of us is far too deep, too real

for Him to allow the darkness to blind us forever to the truth.

And so, after John tells us that ...the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it,

he then goes on to reveal to us the rest of the story.

He says, “There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”

Which, in the terms I’m using this morning,

means that there will be a point in the life of every one of us

at which Jesus Christ will rip a hole through the veneer,

through the facade of our lives,

a hole big enough so that we can peak through

and gain a glimpse of the world as it really is.

That’s why some of you are hear this morning.

God has been skillfully moving the pieces of your life around in such a way

as to finally make it possible

for Him to rip a whole in the facade

and give you a glimpse of the world as it really is.

I don’t know what He used to accomplish that work in your life,

and it doesn’t really matter.

Sometimes it’s pain,

or loss,

or fear,

or anxiety,

or failure,

or some other difficult situation

that has forced us to realize that this facade in which we live

never keeps its promises to us.

Maybe He simply created within you a hunger for something more,

an emptiness within you

that nothing in the world around you seems to be able to fill.

Maybe He’s used another person to tear the hole,

someone who possesses a quality of life you’ve never seen before

and you want it.

Or maybe He just brought someone into your life who seems to love you for no reason,

and you’ve discovered that this person also loves Jesus.

But whatever He’s used,

the result is the same -

you’ve discovered that all is not as it seems.

You’ve gained a glimpse of a world you never even knew existed,

and now, having seen it,

you can’t go back to the way things use to be.

And the light shines in the darkness...

When John tells us about that process

as it unfolded in his world,

at first the picture he paints for us

is dismal almost beyond belief.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

That single statement

expresses with such perfect clarity

how absolute the darkness is that blankets our world.

Here was our Creator God

literally living with us

and no one knew who He was.

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

And if that was where John stopped,

it would be tragic beyond words.

But it’s his next words

that change everything forevermore.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And here’s what I need to prepare your for.

If you have seen the rip in the facade around you,

if you’ve gained that glimpse

or maybe just a hint

of the real world that lies beneath,

with that knowledge

there always comes a choice,

a defining point at which we must choose.

If we want to,

we can frantically look for some tape,

and scissors,

and maybe some paint or felt tip makers

and then try to patch up that rip

and pretend it never happened,

pretend that the other world we saw,

that real world isn’t really there.

But if we have the courage to face the truth,

and if we look a little more closely

what we will see is not another system,

what we will see is Jesus Christ Himself.

And what He asks from us

is that we let Him into our world on His terms.

But as many as received Him...

And I need to be real clear here

that this is all He asks of us.

He’s not asking us rebuild our lives.

He’s asking us to let Him in

so that He can do the rebuilding for us,

in us.

And if we choose to let Him in,

He will do just that.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And His promise to us

is that, if we let Him in,

He will literally recreate us at the deepest level of our being.

And then, step by step,

He will begin to give us eyes to see this world as we’ve never seen it before,

the real world as really is. 4/23/06 Darkness And Light

JOH 1:5, 9-14 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

We are returning to our study of the Gospel of John today.

But hopefully we’re going to do a good deal more than that.

Hopefully we’re also going to return to our study of life -

real life,

they way things really are.

I know we spend most of our hectic days

believing we are living real life,

seeing the world as it really is,

trying our best to cope with it,

but that is not as true as we often believe.

You see, there is a thin veneer covering this world in which we live.

It’s a false facade

designed to hide us from the truth of what’s really taking place.

This facade differs in detail from culture to culture,

but it’s underlying components remain the same.

In our culture the facade can be seen everywhere -

whenever we turn on the television,

or listen to the news,

or watch a movie,

or walk into Fred Meyers it’s there.

This facade is skillfully crafted,

designed to answer what we are led to believe

are all of the important questions of life for us.

It tells us who matters most in our society

and who matters very little.

The facade tells us how to recognize the really important people.

We recognize them on the basis of the positions they hold in society

or the possessions they claim as their own,

or on the basis of how they look,

or what skills they have,

or how well they use words,

or how high they score on an IQ test.

It’s all part of the facade surrounding us,

part of what we are told determines our value, our importance, our place.

And there’s more, lots more to this facade as well.

The facade also tells us which events matter on a day to day basis

and which do not.

The really big events,

the ones that matter the most

are reported to the entire nation on the evening news

or printed in papers and magazines so we can read all about them.

I know of an event that took place this past week in our community,

an event in which God Himself,

the Creator of all that is,

directly intervened in the internal workings of a government agency.

A boy who, for four months, had been hoping and planning

to join the mission trip to Mexico

was told two weeks ago by that government agency

that he would not be permitted to go.

His mom talked to the agency repeatedly without success.

And then a few of us appealed to a higher authority.

We prayed.

And then Tuesday morning his mom received a phone call from the agency

stating that they were reversing their decision

and they were granting the boy permission to go.

It was one of those agencies

that never reverses anything for anyone.

And yet,

as a direct result of His response to several people’s prayers,

God intervened,

and caused some people who never change their minds

to reverse their position.

Only a few people will ever know what happened or why.

It will certainly never make the evening news,

or the local paper.

By the value system of the facade in which we live,

neither that boy nor that altered decision have any significant value whatsoever.

And yet to God, who never ever takes His cues from the evening news,

this boy and the events taking place in his young life were highly significant,

in fact sufficiently significant for Him to personally, directly intervene in human affairs.

But because the facade is so all-inclusive,

and so deeply ingrained in our thinking,

in our lives,

we only rarely see beyond it

into the world as it really is.

I’ve thought a lot about that event this past week

and I have to admit that I find it truly amazing.

It has helped me see so clearly

the massive difference between the real world

and the facade that covers it.

Here was an event that God Himself considered to be of such significance

that He directly intervened in the outcome.

In a sane world,

a correct world

the headlines in the Clarion on Wednesday morning would have read,

“GOD INTERVENES ON BOY’S BEHALF”.

Yet within this facade in which we are immersed,

almost no one will ever know, or care.

And there is so much more to this facade as well.

It not only tells us which events and which people are important

and which are not,

but it also tells us where happiness can be found.

One of the things it tells us with absolute certainty

is that there is a direct link between our happiness and the things we possess.

It tells us, for example,

that new things are almost certainly guaranteed to bring us happiness -

new clothes,

a new TV,

a new car or a new house -

all of these are certain to increase our happiness level,

(according to this facade in which we live).

And even though this facade has never kept its promises to us in the past,

and even though there has never been anything we’ve ever wanted that,

after we got it has had the power to make us truly happy forever,

still it tells us that the only problem is that we wanted the wrong thing

and the next time... the next time it will work -

the next time when we get whatever it is we want

it really will fill the void within.

Sandee and I like to watch HGTV,

the Home and Garden Network.

I suppose it’s an old people thing.

Each year HGTV gives away

and incredible new home worth several million dollars.

Sandee and I watched the program in which the network took us on an extended tour of this new house,

and as soon as we saw the program

we just knew we would be much happier

if we were to win that house.

So each morning for the next several weeks

I began my computer day

by going to their web site so that I could enter the contest one more time.

(You could only enter once every 24 yours.)

I even set the HGTV site as my home page.

The house was fully furnished

so when we won

we were going to go through the house and take all the stuff we really liked,

and then put the house itself up for sale.

We’d sell it really cheap

so it would sell fast,

and then we’d put the money away so that I could retire someday.

It seemed like a really good plan to us,

and we were both just certain that we’d be lots happier if we won,

but clearly the Lord saw it differently

because we didn’t win.

But that’s what this facade does -

it tells us where happiness can be found,

and then sometimes if we’re not aware of the lies,

if we don’t get what we think we need

this facade will even turn around and tell us it’s God’s fault we didn’t get it,

it’s God’s fault we don’t have

what we really need in order to be happy.

ROM 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

PSA 84:11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

There are lots and lots of other things offered to us by this facade as well.

The facade tells us

that people do bad things because they are ignorant,

and if they were just properly educated

then they would stop doing the bad things they’re doing.

Of course there are within our society

some very highly educated people

who do some very, very bad things,

but still ignorance is considered to be the chief culprit

when it comes to most of the wrong actions of those around us.

And this facade also tells us that another crucial key to changing society

is to write more and better laws.

Stronger crime bills will reduce the amount of crime

and stronger illegal drug bills will stop illegal drugs.

It hasn’t worked so far, of course,

but perhaps it’s just because we haven’t yet worded the laws correctly.

It is a truly remarkable facade in which we live,

one that seems to answer all of the questions of life.

And when we enter this world

we all accept it,

and follow it,

and give our lives to it,

and then wonder why we all continue to live out our lives of quit desperation.

But then, with every one of us,

sometimes at the time when we least expect it,

something will happen to pierce that facade.

Or, as John so skillfully says it,

the light shines in the darkness.

For, you see, that is exactly what Christ was doing

when He entered our world in human form.

He was ripping holes in the facade.

He was blasting holes in it

in a way that has forced all of us ever since

to see the truth,

the way things really are.

We have seen already in our study of the Gospel of John

the way in which John at times takes an entire world of truth

and captures it in a single word -

“In the beginning was the WORD...”

“In Him was LIFE...”

“He is the LIGHT of the world...”

Well, he does it again in the 5^th verse of this first chapter.

He takes this facade, this veneer we’ve been talking about

and captures the whole thing once again in a single word.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

That word “darkness”

is a word that perfectly captures the heart of that facade.

You see, just as with physical darkness,

this facade around us

prevents us from seeing what really is.

And in that single remarkable sentence,

“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it...”,

John also sets the stage for two things.

First of all

he sets the stage for what we will see unfolding in the pages that follow -

this intense warfare that raged between light and darkness,

between facade and reality,

during the few years that Christ was present with us.

And second,

he sets the stage for what we see happening

in each of our lives ever since,

this divinely generated warfare in our own lives,

a warfare in which our God

seeks to pierce this facade around us

in a way that confronts each of us with the world as it really is.

But let’s start first of all with the statement itself.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The light, of course, is Jesus Christ.

It is God’s revelation of Himself in human form.

And John tells us that when this facade in which we live

is confronted with this Light,

the facade simply doesn’t get it.

It doesn’t understand.

It doesn’t understand

because it doesn’t want to understand,

because it’s very existence depends upon it not understanding.

When Christ was here personally,

and the facade encasing the world in which He lived

was confronted with Him,

and with the light, and truth, and love that He brought into this world,

the only choice the leaders of that world had

was one of seeking to destroy Him

because He threatened their very existence

and they knew they could not control Him,

or reshape Him after the form they wanted Him to take.

They tried, of course.

They tried to discredit Him

by spreading roomers that he was “born of fornication”,

letting people know

that they had it on very reliable sources

that He was conceived before Mary and Joseph were married.

They tried to discredit Him

on the basis of His actions,

pointing out again and again

that He consistently violated the sacred rules governing the Sabbath Day,

and that He openly associated Himself

with prostitutes,

and drunkards,

and gluttons,

and those within the Jewish society who had sold out their own countrymen to the hated Romans

just so they could line their own pockets with gold.

But those who were close to Him

saw the truth,

they saw the light.

They heard His words,

and they saw His actions,

and they experienced His amazing love for them,

and all the smear campaigns in the world

could not change the reality of who He really was.

So for them,

for those who lived in and loved the darkness of that first century facade,

the only answer was to destroy Him.

Today it’s not that way.

Today when the light shines in the darkness,

the darkness responds by reshaping Him into religion.

Religion, you see, is fine.

It fits well into the darkness,

into the facade.

In fact religion makes the facade seem all the more true.

It turns the light into a form,

it turns Jesus Christ into a ritual,

it turns the truth into a routine,

into a form that can be learned and perpetuated,

a form that makes us feel holy,

and protected,

and secure with God when we fulfill it,

while at the same time

doing no damage to the facade in which we live.

The specifics of the form very widely from group to group.

For some it’s learning how to talk the Christian talk

and sing the Christian songs,

and attend the Christian meetings with the right regularity.

For others it’s memorizing liturgies,

and observing holy days,

and fulfilling the prescribed rituals handed down from the fathers.

But no matter what form the religion takes

it’s always completely compatible

with the darkness,

with the facade in which we live.

But we matter far to much to our God,

and His love for each of us is far too deep, too real

for Him to allow the darkness to blind us forever to the truth.

And so, after John tells us that ...the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it,

he then goes on to reveal to us the rest of the story.

He says, “There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”

Which, in the terms I’m using this morning,

means that there will be a point in the life of every one of us

at which Jesus Christ will rip a hole through the veneer,

through the facade of our lives,

a hole big enough so that we can peak through

and gain a glimpse of the world as it really is.

That’s why some of you are hear this morning.

God has been skillfully moving the pieces of your life around in such a way

as to finally make it possible

for Him to rip a whole in the facade

and give you a glimpse of the world as it really is.

I don’t know what He used to accomplish that work in your life,

and it doesn’t really matter.

Sometimes it’s pain,

or loss,

or fear,

or anxiety,

or failure,

or some other difficult situation

that has forced us to realize that this facade in which we live

never keeps its promises to us.

Maybe He simply created within you a hunger for something more,

an emptiness within you

that nothing in the world around you seems to be able to fill.

Maybe He’s used another person to tear the hole,

someone who possesses a quality of life you’ve never seen before

and you want it.

Or maybe He just brought someone into your life who seems to love you for no reason,

and you’ve discovered that this person also loves Jesus.

But whatever He’s used,

the result is the same -

you’ve discovered that all is not as it seems.

You’ve gained a glimpse of a world you never even knew existed,

and now, having seen it,

you can’t go back to the way things use to be.

And the light shines in the darkness...

When John tells us about that process

as it unfolded in his world,

at first the picture he paints for us

is dismal almost beyond belief.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

That single statement

expresses with such perfect clarity

how absolute the darkness is that blankets our world.

Here was our Creator God

literally living with us

and no one knew who He was.

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

And if that was where John stopped,

it would be tragic beyond words.

But it’s his next words

that change everything forevermore.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And here’s what I need to prepare your for.

If you have seen the rip in the facade around you,

if you’ve gained that glimpse

or maybe just a hint

of the real world that lies beneath,

with that knowledge

there always comes a choice,

a defining point at which we must choose.

If we want to,

we can frantically look for some tape,

and scissors,

and maybe some paint or felt tip makers

and then try to patch up that rip

and pretend it never happened,

pretend that the other world we saw,

that real world isn’t really there.

But if we have the courage to face the truth,

and if we look a little more closely

what we will see is not another system,

what we will see is Jesus Christ Himself.

And what He asks from us

is that we let Him into our world on His terms.

But as many as received Him...

And I need to be real clear here

that this is all He asks of us.

He’s not asking us rebuild our lives.

He’s asking us to let Him in

so that He can do the rebuilding for us,

in us.

And if we choose to let Him in,

He will do just that.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And His promise to us

is that, if we let Him in,

He will literally recreate us at the deepest level of our being.

And then, step by step,

He will begin to give us eyes to see this world as we’ve never seen it before,

the real world as really is. 4/23/06 Darkness And Light

JOH 1:5, 9-14 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

We are returning to our study of the Gospel of John today.

But hopefully we’re going to do a good deal more than that.

Hopefully we’re also going to return to our study of life -

real life,

they way things really are.

I know we spend most of our hectic days

believing we are living real life,

seeing the world as it really is,

trying our best to cope with it,

but that is not as true as we often believe.

You see, there is a thin veneer covering this world in which we live.

It’s a false facade

designed to hide us from the truth of what’s really taking place.

This facade differs in detail from culture to culture,

but it’s underlying components remain the same.

In our culture the facade can be seen everywhere -

whenever we turn on the television,

or listen to the news,

or watch a movie,

or walk into Fred Meyers it’s there.

This facade is skillfully crafted,

designed to answer what we are led to believe

are all of the important questions of life for us.

It tells us who matters most in our society

and who matters very little.

The facade tells us how to recognize the really important people.

We recognize them on the basis of the positions they hold in society

or the possessions they claim as their own,

or on the basis of how they look,

or what skills they have,

or how well they use words,

or how high they score on an IQ test.

It’s all part of the facade surrounding us,

part of what we are told determines our value, our importance, our place.

And there’s more, lots more to this facade as well.

The facade also tells us which events matter on a day to day basis

and which do not.

The really big events,

the ones that matter the most

are reported to the entire nation on the evening news

or printed in papers and magazines so we can read all about them.

I know of an event that took place this past week in our community,

an event in which God Himself,

the Creator of all that is,

directly intervened in the internal workings of a government agency.

A boy who, for four months, had been hoping and planning

to join the mission trip to Mexico

was told two weeks ago by that government agency

that he would not be permitted to go.

His mom talked to the agency repeatedly without success.

And then a few of us appealed to a higher authority.

We prayed.

And then Tuesday morning his mom received a phone call from the agency

stating that they were reversing their decision

and they were granting the boy permission to go.

It was one of those agencies

that never reverses anything for anyone.

And yet,

as a direct result of His response to several people’s prayers,

God intervened,

and caused some people who never change their minds

to reverse their position.

Only a few people will ever know what happened or why.

It will certainly never make the evening news,

or the local paper.

By the value system of the facade in which we live,

neither that boy nor that altered decision have any significant value whatsoever.

And yet to God, who never ever takes His cues from the evening news,

this boy and the events taking place in his young life were highly significant,

in fact sufficiently significant for Him to personally, directly intervene in human affairs.

But because the facade is so all-inclusive,

and so deeply ingrained in our thinking,

in our lives,

we only rarely see beyond it

into the world as it really is.

I’ve thought a lot about that event this past week

and I have to admit that I find it truly amazing.

It has helped me see so clearly

the massive difference between the real world

and the facade that covers it.

Here was an event that God Himself considered to be of such significance

that He directly intervened in the outcome.

In a sane world,

a correct world

the headlines in the Clarion on Wednesday morning would have read,

“GOD INTERVENES ON BOY’S BEHALF”.

Yet within this facade in which we are immersed,

almost no one will ever know, or care.

And there is so much more to this facade as well.

It not only tells us which events and which people are important

and which are not,

but it also tells us where happiness can be found.

One of the things it tells us with absolute certainty

is that there is a direct link between our happiness and the things we possess.

It tells us, for example,

that new things are almost certainly guaranteed to bring us happiness -

new clothes,

a new TV,

a new car or a new house -

all of these are certain to increase our happiness level,

(according to this facade in which we live).

And even though this facade has never kept its promises to us in the past,

and even though there has never been anything we’ve ever wanted that,

after we got it has had the power to make us truly happy forever,

still it tells us that the only problem is that we wanted the wrong thing

and the next time... the next time it will work -

the next time when we get whatever it is we want

it really will fill the void within.

Sandee and I like to watch HGTV,

the Home and Garden Network.

I suppose it’s an old people thing.

Each year HGTV gives away

and incredible new home worth several million dollars.

Sandee and I watched the program in which the network took us on an extended tour of this new house,

and as soon as we saw the program

we just knew we would be much happier

if we were to win that house.

So each morning for the next several weeks

I began my computer day

by going to their web site so that I could enter the contest one more time.

(You could only enter once every 24 yours.)

I even set the HGTV site as my home page.

The house was fully furnished

so when we won

we were going to go through the house and take all the stuff we really liked,

and then put the house itself up for sale.

We’d sell it really cheap

so it would sell fast,

and then we’d put the money away so that I could retire someday.

It seemed like a really good plan to us,

and we were both just certain that we’d be lots happier if we won,

but clearly the Lord saw it differently

because we didn’t win.

But that’s what this facade does -

it tells us where happiness can be found,

and then sometimes if we’re not aware of the lies,

if we don’t get what we think we need

this facade will even turn around and tell us it’s God’s fault we didn’t get it,

it’s God’s fault we don’t have

what we really need in order to be happy.

ROM 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

PSA 84:11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

There are lots and lots of other things offered to us by this facade as well.

The facade tells us

that people do bad things because they are ignorant,

and if they were just properly educated

then they would stop doing the bad things they’re doing.

Of course there are within our society

some very highly educated people

who do some very, very bad things,

but still ignorance is considered to be the chief culprit

when it comes to most of the wrong actions of those around us.

And this facade also tells us that another crucial key to changing society

is to write more and better laws.

Stronger crime bills will reduce the amount of crime

and stronger illegal drug bills will stop illegal drugs.

It hasn’t worked so far, of course,

but perhaps it’s just because we haven’t yet worded the laws correctly.

It is a truly remarkable facade in which we live,

one that seems to answer all of the questions of life.

And when we enter this world

we all accept it,

and follow it,

and give our lives to it,

and then wonder why we all continue to live out our lives of quit desperation.

But then, with every one of us,

sometimes at the time when we least expect it,

something will happen to pierce that facade.

Or, as John so skillfully says it,

the light shines in the darkness.

For, you see, that is exactly what Christ was doing

when He entered our world in human form.

He was ripping holes in the facade.

He was blasting holes in it

in a way that has forced all of us ever since

to see the truth,

the way things really are.

We have seen already in our study of the Gospel of John

the way in which John at times takes an entire world of truth

and captures it in a single word -

“In the beginning was the WORD...”

“In Him was LIFE...”

“He is the LIGHT of the world...”

Well, he does it again in the 5^th verse of this first chapter.

He takes this facade, this veneer we’ve been talking about

and captures the whole thing once again in a single word.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

That word “darkness”

is a word that perfectly captures the heart of that facade.

You see, just as with physical darkness,

this facade around us

prevents us from seeing what really is.

And in that single remarkable sentence,

“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it...”,

John also sets the stage for two things.

First of all

he sets the stage for what we will see unfolding in the pages that follow -

this intense warfare that raged between light and darkness,

between facade and reality,

during the few years that Christ was present with us.

And second,

he sets the stage for what we see happening

in each of our lives ever since,

this divinely generated warfare in our own lives,

a warfare in which our God

seeks to pierce this facade around us

in a way that confronts each of us with the world as it really is.

But let’s start first of all with the statement itself.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The light, of course, is Jesus Christ.

It is God’s revelation of Himself in human form.

And John tells us that when this facade in which we live

is confronted with this Light,

the facade simply doesn’t get it.

It doesn’t understand.

It doesn’t understand

because it doesn’t want to understand,

because it’s very existence depends upon it not understanding.

When Christ was here personally,

and the facade encasing the world in which He lived

was confronted with Him,

and with the light, and truth, and love that He brought into this world,

the only choice the leaders of that world had

was one of seeking to destroy Him

because He threatened their very existence

and they knew they could not control Him,

or reshape Him after the form they wanted Him to take.

They tried, of course.

They tried to discredit Him

by spreading roomers that he was “born of fornication”,

letting people know

that they had it on very reliable sources

that He was conceived before Mary and Joseph were married.

They tried to discredit Him

on the basis of His actions,

pointing out again and again

that He consistently violated the sacred rules governing the Sabbath Day,

and that He openly associated Himself

with prostitutes,

and drunkards,

and gluttons,

and those within the Jewish society who had sold out their own countrymen to the hated Romans

just so they could line their own pockets with gold.

But those who were close to Him

saw the truth,

they saw the light.

They heard His words,

and they saw His actions,

and they experienced His amazing love for them,

and all the smear campaigns in the world

could not change the reality of who He really was.

So for them,

for those who lived in and loved the darkness of that first century facade,

the only answer was to destroy Him.

Today it’s not that way.

Today when the light shines in the darkness,

the darkness responds by reshaping Him into religion.

Religion, you see, is fine.

It fits well into the darkness,

into the facade.

In fact religion makes the facade seem all the more true.

It turns the light into a form,

it turns Jesus Christ into a ritual,

it turns the truth into a routine,

into a form that can be learned and perpetuated,

a form that makes us feel holy,

and protected,

and secure with God when we fulfill it,

while at the same time

doing no damage to the facade in which we live.

The specifics of the form very widely from group to group.

For some it’s learning how to talk the Christian talk

and sing the Christian songs,

and attend the Christian meetings with the right regularity.

For others it’s memorizing liturgies,

and observing holy days,

and fulfilling the prescribed rituals handed down from the fathers.

But no matter what form the religion takes

it’s always completely compatible

with the darkness,

with the facade in which we live.

But we matter far to much to our God,

and His love for each of us is far too deep, too real

for Him to allow the darkness to blind us forever to the truth.

And so, after John tells us that ...the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it,

he then goes on to reveal to us the rest of the story.

He says, “There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”

Which, in the terms I’m using this morning,

means that there will be a point in the life of every one of us

at which Jesus Christ will rip a hole through the veneer,

through the facade of our lives,

a hole big enough so that we can peak through

and gain a glimpse of the world as it really is.

That’s why some of you are hear this morning.

God has been skillfully moving the pieces of your life around in such a way

as to finally make it possible

for Him to rip a whole in the facade

and give you a glimpse of the world as it really is.

I don’t know what He used to accomplish that work in your life,

and it doesn’t really matter.

Sometimes it’s pain,

or loss,

or fear,

or anxiety,

or failure,

or some other difficult situation

that has forced us to realize that this facade in which we live

never keeps its promises to us.

Maybe He simply created within you a hunger for something more,

an emptiness within you

that nothing in the world around you seems to be able to fill.

Maybe He’s used another person to tear the hole,

someone who possesses a quality of life you’ve never seen before

and you want it.

Or maybe He just brought someone into your life who seems to love you for no reason,

and you’ve discovered that this person also loves Jesus.

But whatever He’s used,

the result is the same -

you’ve discovered that all is not as it seems.

You’ve gained a glimpse of a world you never even knew existed,

and now, having seen it,

you can’t go back to the way things use to be.

And the light shines in the darkness...

When John tells us about that process

as it unfolded in his world,

at first the picture he paints for us

is dismal almost beyond belief.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

That single statement

expresses with such perfect clarity

how absolute the darkness is that blankets our world.

Here was our Creator God

literally living with us

and no one knew who He was.

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

And if that was where John stopped,

it would be tragic beyond words.

But it’s his next words

that change everything forevermore.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And here’s what I need to prepare your for.

If you have seen the rip in the facade around you,

if you’ve gained that glimpse

or maybe just a hint

of the real world that lies beneath,

with that knowledge

there always comes a choice,

a defining point at which we must choose.

If we want to,

we can frantically look for some tape,

and scissors,

and maybe some paint or felt tip makers

and then try to patch up that rip

and pretend it never happened,

pretend that the other world we saw,

that real world isn’t really there.

But if we have the courage to face the truth,

and if we look a little more closely

what we will see is not another system,

what we will see is Jesus Christ Himself.

And what He asks from us

is that we let Him into our world on His terms.

But as many as received Him...

And I need to be real clear here

that this is all He asks of us.

He’s not asking us rebuild our lives.

He’s asking us to let Him in

so that He can do the rebuilding for us,

in us.

And if we choose to let Him in,

He will do just that.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And His promise to us

is that, if we let Him in,

He will literally recreate us at the deepest level of our being.

And then, step by step,

He will begin to give us eyes to see this world as we’ve never seen it before,

the real world as really is. 4/23/06 Darkness And Light

JOH 1:5, 9-14 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

We are returning to our study of the Gospel of John today.

But hopefully we’re going to do a good deal more than that.

Hopefully we’re also going to return to our study of life -

real life,

they way things really are.

I know we spend most of our hectic days

believing we are living real life,

seeing the world as it really is,

trying our best to cope with it,

but that is not as true as we often believe.

You see, there is a thin veneer covering this world in which we live.

It’s a false facade

designed to hide us from the truth of what’s really taking place.

This facade differs in detail from culture to culture,

but it’s underlying components remain the same.

In our culture the facade can be seen everywhere -

whenever we turn on the television,

or listen to the news,

or watch a movie,

or walk into Fred Meyers it’s there.

This facade is skillfully crafted,

designed to answer what we are led to believe

are all of the important questions of life for us.

It tells us who matters most in our society

and who matters very little.

The facade tells us how to recognize the really important people.

We recognize them on the basis of the positions they hold in society

or the possessions they claim as their own,

or on the basis of how they look,

or what skills they have,

or how well they use words,

or how high they score on an IQ test.

It’s all part of the facade surrounding us,

part of what we are told determines our value, our importance, our place.

And there’s more, lots more to this facade as well.

The facade also tells us which events matter on a day to day basis

and which do not.

The really big events,

the ones that matter the most

are reported to the entire nation on the evening news

or printed in papers and magazines so we can read all about them.

I know of an event that took place this past week in our community,

an event in which God Himself,

the Creator of all that is,

directly intervened in the internal workings of a government agency.

A boy who, for four months, had been hoping and planning

to join the mission trip to Mexico

was told two weeks ago by that government agency

that he would not be permitted to go.

His mom talked to the agency repeatedly without success.

And then a few of us appealed to a higher authority.

We prayed.

And then Tuesday morning his mom received a phone call from the agency

stating that they were reversing their decision

and they were granting the boy permission to go.

It was one of those agencies

that never reverses anything for anyone.

And yet,

as a direct result of His response to several people’s prayers,

God intervened,

and caused some people who never change their minds

to reverse their position.

Only a few people will ever know what happened or why.

It will certainly never make the evening news,

or the local paper.

By the value system of the facade in which we live,

neither that boy nor that altered decision have any significant value whatsoever.

And yet to God, who never ever takes His cues from the evening news,

this boy and the events taking place in his young life were highly significant,

in fact sufficiently significant for Him to personally, directly intervene in human affairs.

But because the facade is so all-inclusive,

and so deeply ingrained in our thinking,

in our lives,

we only rarely see beyond it

into the world as it really is.

I’ve thought a lot about that event this past week

and I have to admit that I find it truly amazing.

It has helped me see so clearly

the massive difference between the real world

and the facade that covers it.

Here was an event that God Himself considered to be of such significance

that He directly intervened in the outcome.

In a sane world,

a correct world

the headlines in the Clarion on Wednesday morning would have read,

“GOD INTERVENES ON BOY’S BEHALF”.

Yet within this facade in which we are immersed,

almost no one will ever know, or care.

And there is so much more to this facade as well.

It not only tells us which events and which people are important

and which are not,

but it also tells us where happiness can be found.

One of the things it tells us with absolute certainty

is that there is a direct link between our happiness and the things we possess.

It tells us, for example,

that new things are almost certainly guaranteed to bring us happiness -

new clothes,

a new TV,

a new car or a new house -

all of these are certain to increase our happiness level,

(according to this facade in which we live).

And even though this facade has never kept its promises to us in the past,

and even though there has never been anything we’ve ever wanted that,

after we got it has had the power to make us truly happy forever,

still it tells us that the only problem is that we wanted the wrong thing

and the next time... the next time it will work -

the next time when we get whatever it is we want

it really will fill the void within.

Sandee and I like to watch HGTV,

the Home and Garden Network.

I suppose it’s an old people thing.

Each year HGTV gives away

and incredible new home worth several million dollars.

Sandee and I watched the program in which the network took us on an extended tour of this new house,

and as soon as we saw the program

we just knew we would be much happier

if we were to win that house.

So each morning for the next several weeks

I began my computer day

by going to their web site so that I could enter the contest one more time.

(You could only enter once every 24 yours.)

I even set the HGTV site as my home page.

The house was fully furnished

so when we won

we were going to go through the house and take all the stuff we really liked,

and then put the house itself up for sale.

We’d sell it really cheap

so it would sell fast,

and then we’d put the money away so that I could retire someday.

It seemed like a really good plan to us,

and we were both just certain that we’d be lots happier if we won,

but clearly the Lord saw it differently

because we didn’t win.

But that’s what this facade does -

it tells us where happiness can be found,

and then sometimes if we’re not aware of the lies,

if we don’t get what we think we need

this facade will even turn around and tell us it’s God’s fault we didn’t get it,

it’s God’s fault we don’t have

what we really need in order to be happy.

ROM 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

PSA 84:11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

There are lots and lots of other things offered to us by this facade as well.

The facade tells us

that people do bad things because they are ignorant,

and if they were just properly educated

then they would stop doing the bad things they’re doing.

Of course there are within our society

some very highly educated people

who do some very, very bad things,

but still ignorance is considered to be the chief culprit

when it comes to most of the wrong actions of those around us.

And this facade also tells us that another crucial key to changing society

is to write more and better laws.

Stronger crime bills will reduce the amount of crime

and stronger illegal drug bills will stop illegal drugs.

It hasn’t worked so far, of course,

but perhaps it’s just because we haven’t yet worded the laws correctly.

It is a truly remarkable facade in which we live,

one that seems to answer all of the questions of life.

And when we enter this world

we all accept it,

and follow it,

and give our lives to it,

and then wonder why we all continue to live out our lives of quit desperation.

But then, with every one of us,

sometimes at the time when we least expect it,

something will happen to pierce that facade.

Or, as John so skillfully says it,

the light shines in the darkness.

For, you see, that is exactly what Christ was doing

when He entered our world in human form.

He was ripping holes in the facade.

He was blasting holes in it

in a way that has forced all of us ever since

to see the truth,

the way things really are.

We have seen already in our study of the Gospel of John

the way in which John at times takes an entire world of truth

and captures it in a single word -

“In the beginning was the WORD...”

“In Him was LIFE...”

“He is the LIGHT of the world...”

Well, he does it again in the 5^th verse of this first chapter.

He takes this facade, this veneer we’ve been talking about

and captures the whole thing once again in a single word.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

That word “darkness”

is a word that perfectly captures the heart of that facade.

You see, just as with physical darkness,

this facade around us

prevents us from seeing what really is.

And in that single remarkable sentence,

“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it...”,

John also sets the stage for two things.

First of all

he sets the stage for what we will see unfolding in the pages that follow -

this intense warfare that raged between light and darkness,

between facade and reality,

during the few years that Christ was present with us.

And second,

he sets the stage for what we see happening

in each of our lives ever since,

this divinely generated warfare in our own lives,

a warfare in which our God

seeks to pierce this facade around us

in a way that confronts each of us with the world as it really is.

But let’s start first of all with the statement itself.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The light, of course, is Jesus Christ.

It is God’s revelation of Himself in human form.

And John tells us that when this facade in which we live

is confronted with this Light,

the facade simply doesn’t get it.

It doesn’t understand.

It doesn’t understand

because it doesn’t want to understand,

because it’s very existence depends upon it not understanding.

When Christ was here personally,

and the facade encasing the world in which He lived

was confronted with Him,

and with the light, and truth, and love that He brought into this world,

the only choice the leaders of that world had

was one of seeking to destroy Him

because He threatened their very existence

and they knew they could not control Him,

or reshape Him after the form they wanted Him to take.

They tried, of course.

They tried to discredit Him

by spreading roomers that he was “born of fornication”,

letting people know

that they had it on very reliable sources

that He was conceived before Mary and Joseph were married.

They tried to discredit Him

on the basis of His actions,

pointing out again and again

that He consistently violated the sacred rules governing the Sabbath Day,

and that He openly associated Himself

with prostitutes,

and drunkards,

and gluttons,

and those within the Jewish society who had sold out their own countrymen to the hated Romans

just so they could line their own pockets with gold.

But those who were close to Him

saw the truth,

they saw the light.

They heard His words,

and they saw His actions,

and they experienced His amazing love for them,

and all the smear campaigns in the world

could not change the reality of who He really was.

So for them,

for those who lived in and loved the darkness of that first century facade,

the only answer was to destroy Him.

Today it’s not that way.

Today when the light shines in the darkness,

the darkness responds by reshaping Him into religion.

Religion, you see, is fine.

It fits well into the darkness,

into the facade.

In fact religion makes the facade seem all the more true.

It turns the light into a form,

it turns Jesus Christ into a ritual,

it turns the truth into a routine,

into a form that can be learned and perpetuated,

a form that makes us feel holy,

and protected,

and secure with God when we fulfill it,

while at the same time

doing no damage to the facade in which we live.

The specifics of the form very widely from group to group.

For some it’s learning how to talk the Christian talk

and sing the Christian songs,

and attend the Christian meetings with the right regularity.

For others it’s memorizing liturgies,

and observing holy days,

and fulfilling the prescribed rituals handed down from the fathers.

But no matter what form the religion takes

it’s always completely compatible

with the darkness,

with the facade in which we live.

But we matter far to much to our God,

and His love for each of us is far too deep, too real

for Him to allow the darkness to blind us forever to the truth.

And so, after John tells us that ...the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it,

he then goes on to reveal to us the rest of the story.

He says, “There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”

Which, in the terms I’m using this morning,

means that there will be a point in the life of every one of us

at which Jesus Christ will rip a hole through the veneer,

through the facade of our lives,

a hole big enough so that we can peak through

and gain a glimpse of the world as it really is.

That’s why some of you are hear this morning.

God has been skillfully moving the pieces of your life around in such a way

as to finally make it possible

for Him to rip a whole in the facade

and give you a glimpse of the world as it really is.

I don’t know what He used to accomplish that work in your life,

and it doesn’t really matter.

Sometimes it’s pain,

or loss,

or fear,

or anxiety,

or failure,

or some other difficult situation

that has forced us to realize that this facade in which we live

never keeps its promises to us.

Maybe He simply created within you a hunger for something more,

an emptiness within you

that nothing in the world around you seems to be able to fill.

Maybe He’s used another person to tear the hole,

someone who possesses a quality of life you’ve never seen before

and you want it.

Or maybe He just brought someone into your life who seems to love you for no reason,

and you’ve discovered that this person also loves Jesus.

But whatever He’s used,

the result is the same -

you’ve discovered that all is not as it seems.

You’ve gained a glimpse of a world you never even knew existed,

and now, having seen it,

you can’t go back to the way things use to be.

And the light shines in the darkness...

When John tells us about that process

as it unfolded in his world,

at first the picture he paints for us

is dismal almost beyond belief.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

That single statement

expresses with such perfect clarity

how absolute the darkness is that blankets our world.

Here was our Creator God

literally living with us

and no one knew who He was.

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

And if that was where John stopped,

it would be tragic beyond words.

But it’s his next words

that change everything forevermore.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And here’s what I need to prepare your for.

If you have seen the rip in the facade around you,

if you’ve gained that glimpse

or maybe just a hint

of the real world that lies beneath,

with that knowledge

there always comes a choice,

a defining point at which we must choose.

If we want to,

we can frantically look for some tape,

and scissors,

and maybe some paint or felt tip makers

and then try to patch up that rip

and pretend it never happened,

pretend that the other world we saw,

that real world isn’t really there.

But if we have the courage to face the truth,

and if we look a little more closely

what we will see is not another system,

what we will see is Jesus Christ Himself.

And what He asks from us

is that we let Him into our world on His terms.

But as many as received Him...

And I need to be real clear here

that this is all He asks of us.

He’s not asking us rebuild our lives.

He’s asking us to let Him in

so that He can do the rebuilding for us,

in us.

And if we choose to let Him in,

He will do just that.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And His promise to us

is that, if we let Him in,

He will literally recreate us at the deepest level of our being.

And then, step by step,

He will begin to give us eyes to see this world as we’ve never seen it before,

the real world as really is. 4/23/06 Darkness And Light

JOH 1:5, 9-14 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

We are returning to our study of the Gospel of John today.

But hopefully we’re going to do a good deal more than that.

Hopefully we’re also going to return to our study of life -

real life,

they way things really are.

I know we spend most of our hectic days

believing we are living real life,

seeing the world as it really is,

trying our best to cope with it,

but that is not as true as we often believe.

You see, there is a thin veneer covering this world in which we live.

It’s a false facade

designed to hide us from the truth of what’s really taking place.

This facade differs in detail from culture to culture,

but it’s underlying components remain the same.

In our culture the facade can be seen everywhere -

whenever we turn on the television,

or listen to the news,

or watch a movie,

or walk into Fred Meyers it’s there.

This facade is skillfully crafted,

designed to answer what we are led to believe

are all of the important questions of life for us.

It tells us who matters most in our society

and who matters very little.

The facade tells us how to recognize the really important people.

We recognize them on the basis of the positions they hold in society

or the possessions they claim as their own,

or on the basis of how they look,

or what skills they have,

or how well they use words,

or how high they score on an IQ test.

It’s all part of the facade surrounding us,

part of what we are told determines our value, our importance, our place.

And there’s more, lots more to this facade as well.

The facade also tells us which events matter on a day to day basis

and which do not.

The really big events,

the ones that matter the most

are reported to the entire nation on the evening news

or printed in papers and magazines so we can read all about them.

I know of an event that took place this past week in our community,

an event in which God Himself,

the Creator of all that is,

directly intervened in the internal workings of a government agency.

A boy who, for four months, had been hoping and planning

to join the mission trip to Mexico

was told two weeks ago by that government agency

that he would not be permitted to go.

His mom talked to the agency repeatedly without success.

And then a few of us appealed to a higher authority.

We prayed.

And then Tuesday morning his mom received a phone call from the agency

stating that they were reversing their decision

and they were granting the boy permission to go.

It was one of those agencies

that never reverses anything for anyone.

And yet,

as a direct result of His response to several people’s prayers,

God intervened,

and caused some people who never change their minds

to reverse their position.

Only a few people will ever know what happened or why.

It will certainly never make the evening news,

or the local paper.

By the value system of the facade in which we live,

neither that boy nor that altered decision have any significant value whatsoever.

And yet to God, who never ever takes His cues from the evening news,

this boy and the events taking place in his young life were highly significant,

in fact sufficiently significant for Him to personally, directly intervene in human affairs.

But because the facade is so all-inclusive,

and so deeply ingrained in our thinking,

in our lives,

we only rarely see beyond it

into the world as it really is.

I’ve thought a lot about that event this past week

and I have to admit that I find it truly amazing.

It has helped me see so clearly

the massive difference between the real world

and the facade that covers it.

Here was an event that God Himself considered to be of such significance

that He directly intervened in the outcome.

In a sane world,

a correct world

the headlines in the Clarion on Wednesday morning would have read,

“GOD INTERVENES ON BOY’S BEHALF”.

Yet within this facade in which we are immersed,

almost no one will ever know, or care.

And there is so much more to this facade as well.

It not only tells us which events and which people are important

and which are not,

but it also tells us where happiness can be found.

One of the things it tells us with absolute certainty

is that there is a direct link between our happiness and the things we possess.

It tells us, for example,

that new things are almost certainly guaranteed to bring us happiness -

new clothes,

a new TV,

a new car or a new house -

all of these are certain to increase our happiness level,

(according to this facade in which we live).

And even though this facade has never kept its promises to us in the past,

and even though there has never been anything we’ve ever wanted that,

after we got it has had the power to make us truly happy forever,

still it tells us that the only problem is that we wanted the wrong thing

and the next time... the next time it will work -

the next time when we get whatever it is we want

it really will fill the void within.

Sandee and I like to watch HGTV,

the Home and Garden Network.

I suppose it’s an old people thing.

Each year HGTV gives away

and incredible new home worth several million dollars.

Sandee and I watched the program in which the network took us on an extended tour of this new house,

and as soon as we saw the program

we just knew we would be much happier

if we were to win that house.

So each morning for the next several weeks

I began my computer day

by going to their web site so that I could enter the contest one more time.

(You could only enter once every 24 yours.)

I even set the HGTV site as my home page.

The house was fully furnished

so when we won

we were going to go through the house and take all the stuff we really liked,

and then put the house itself up for sale.

We’d sell it really cheap

so it would sell fast,

and then we’d put the money away so that I could retire someday.

It seemed like a really good plan to us,

and we were both just certain that we’d be lots happier if we won,

but clearly the Lord saw it differently

because we didn’t win.

But that’s what this facade does -

it tells us where happiness can be found,

and then sometimes if we’re not aware of the lies,

if we don’t get what we think we need

this facade will even turn around and tell us it’s God’s fault we didn’t get it,

it’s God’s fault we don’t have

what we really need in order to be happy.

ROM 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

PSA 84:11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

There are lots and lots of other things offered to us by this facade as well.

The facade tells us

that people do bad things because they are ignorant,

and if they were just properly educated

then they would stop doing the bad things they’re doing.

Of course there are within our society

some very highly educated people

who do some very, very bad things,

but still ignorance is considered to be the chief culprit

when it comes to most of the wrong actions of those around us.

And this facade also tells us that another crucial key to changing society

is to write more and better laws.

Stronger crime bills will reduce the amount of crime

and stronger illegal drug bills will stop illegal drugs.

It hasn’t worked so far, of course,

but perhaps it’s just because we haven’t yet worded the laws correctly.

It is a truly remarkable facade in which we live,

one that seems to answer all of the questions of life.

And when we enter this world

we all accept it,

and follow it,

and give our lives to it,

and then wonder why we all continue to live out our lives of quit desperation.

But then, with every one of us,

sometimes at the time when we least expect it,

something will happen to pierce that facade.

Or, as John so skillfully says it,

the light shines in the darkness.

For, you see, that is exactly what Christ was doing

when He entered our world in human form.

He was ripping holes in the facade.

He was blasting holes in it

in a way that has forced all of us ever since

to see the truth,

the way things really are.

We have seen already in our study of the Gospel of John

the way in which John at times takes an entire world of truth

and captures it in a single word -

“In the beginning was the WORD...”

“In Him was LIFE...”

“He is the LIGHT of the world...”

Well, he does it again in the 5^th verse of this first chapter.

He takes this facade, this veneer we’ve been talking about

and captures the whole thing once again in a single word.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

That word “darkness”

is a word that perfectly captures the heart of that facade.

You see, just as with physical darkness,

this facade around us

prevents us from seeing what really is.

And in that single remarkable sentence,

“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it...”,

John also sets the stage for two things.

First of all

he sets the stage for what we will see unfolding in the pages that follow -

this intense warfare that raged between light and darkness,

between facade and reality,

during the few years that Christ was present with us.

And second,

he sets the stage for what we see happening

in each of our lives ever since,

this divinely generated warfare in our own lives,

a warfare in which our God

seeks to pierce this facade around us

in a way that confronts each of us with the world as it really is.

But let’s start first of all with the statement itself.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The light, of course, is Jesus Christ.

It is God’s revelation of Himself in human form.

And John tells us that when this facade in which we live

is confronted with this Light,

the facade simply doesn’t get it.

It doesn’t understand.

It doesn’t understand

because it doesn’t want to understand,

because it’s very existence depends upon it not understanding.

When Christ was here personally,

and the facade encasing the world in which He lived

was confronted with Him,

and with the light, and truth, and love that He brought into this world,

the only choice the leaders of that world had

was one of seeking to destroy Him

because He threatened their very existence

and they knew they could not control Him,

or reshape Him after the form they wanted Him to take.

They tried, of course.

They tried to discredit Him

by spreading roomers that he was “born of fornication”,

letting people know

that they had it on very reliable sources

that He was conceived before Mary and Joseph were married.

They tried to discredit Him

on the basis of His actions,

pointing out again and again

that He consistently violated the sacred rules governing the Sabbath Day,

and that He openly associated Himself

with prostitutes,

and drunkards,

and gluttons,

and those within the Jewish society who had sold out their own countrymen to the hated Romans

just so they could line their own pockets with gold.

But those who were close to Him

saw the truth,

they saw the light.

They heard His words,

and they saw His actions,

and they experienced His amazing love for them,

and all the smear campaigns in the world

could not change the reality of who He really was.

So for them,

for those who lived in and loved the darkness of that first century facade,

the only answer was to destroy Him.

Today it’s not that way.

Today when the light shines in the darkness,

the darkness responds by reshaping Him into religion.

Religion, you see, is fine.

It fits well into the darkness,

into the facade.

In fact religion makes the facade seem all the more true.

It turns the light into a form,

it turns Jesus Christ into a ritual,

it turns the truth into a routine,

into a form that can be learned and perpetuated,

a form that makes us feel holy,

and protected,

and secure with God when we fulfill it,

while at the same time

doing no damage to the facade in which we live.

The specifics of the form very widely from group to group.

For some it’s learning how to talk the Christian talk

and sing the Christian songs,

and attend the Christian meetings with the right regularity.

For others it’s memorizing liturgies,

and observing holy days,

and fulfilling the prescribed rituals handed down from the fathers.

But no matter what form the religion takes

it’s always completely compatible

with the darkness,

with the facade in which we live.

But we matter far to much to our God,

and His love for each of us is far too deep, too real

for Him to allow the darkness to blind us forever to the truth.

And so, after John tells us that ...the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it,

he then goes on to reveal to us the rest of the story.

He says, “There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”

Which, in the terms I’m using this morning,

means that there will be a point in the life of every one of us

at which Jesus Christ will rip a hole through the veneer,

through the facade of our lives,

a hole big enough so that we can peak through

and gain a glimpse of the world as it really is.

That’s why some of you are hear this morning.

God has been skillfully moving the pieces of your life around in such a way

as to finally make it possible

for Him to rip a whole in the facade

and give you a glimpse of the world as it really is.

I don’t know what He used to accomplish that work in your life,

and it doesn’t really matter.

Sometimes it’s pain,

or loss,

or fear,

or anxiety,

or failure,

or some other difficult situation

that has forced us to realize that this facade in which we live

never keeps its promises to us.

Maybe He simply created within you a hunger for something more,

an emptiness within you

that nothing in the world around you seems to be able to fill.

Maybe He’s used another person to tear the hole,

someone who possesses a quality of life you’ve never seen before

and you want it.

Or maybe He just brought someone into your life who seems to love you for no reason,

and you’ve discovered that this person also loves Jesus.

But whatever He’s used,

the result is the same -

you’ve discovered that all is not as it seems.

You’ve gained a glimpse of a world you never even knew existed,

and now, having seen it,

you can’t go back to the way things use to be.

And the light shines in the darkness...

When John tells us about that process

as it unfolded in his world,

at first the picture he paints for us

is dismal almost beyond belief.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

That single statement

expresses with such perfect clarity

how absolute the darkness is that blankets our world.

Here was our Creator God

literally living with us

and no one knew who He was.

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

And if that was where John stopped,

it would be tragic beyond words.

But it’s his next words

that change everything forevermore.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And here’s what I need to prepare your for.

If you have seen the rip in the facade around you,

if you’ve gained that glimpse

or maybe just a hint

of the real world that lies beneath,

with that knowledge

there always comes a choice,

a defining point at which we must choose.

If we want to,

we can frantically look for some tape,

and scissors,

and maybe some paint or felt tip makers

and then try to patch up that rip

and pretend it never happened,

pretend that the other world we saw,

that real world isn’t really there.

But if we have the courage to face the truth,

and if we look a little more closely

what we will see is not another system,

what we will see is Jesus Christ Himself.

And what He asks from us

is that we let Him into our world on His terms.

But as many as received Him...

And I need to be real clear here

that this is all He asks of us.

He’s not asking us rebuild our lives.

He’s asking us to let Him in

so that He can do the rebuilding for us,

in us.

And if we choose to let Him in,

He will do just that.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And His promise to us

is that, if we let Him in,

He will literally recreate us at the deepest level of our being.

And then, step by step,

He will begin to give us eyes to see this world as we’ve never seen it before,

the real world as it really is.