Light and Darkness

Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life." (John 8:12)

Jesus says He is the Light.

If I follow Him He says that I will have the Light.

Then it is unavoidable that if He is the Light and I have the Light then I have Him.

The results of having Him, the Light, according to what He says here, is that I will not walk in darkness. That is just simple, logical sense, for if a person has light and is walking, then according to the laws of physics darkness is eliminated by light. Light always eliminates darkness, it is just the very nature of light to do so.

In the previous verse Jesus told a woman to go and sin no more. Jesus here was sharing with her how to do that – by following Him. By strong implication between these two verses, walking in darkness is the same as sin. To walk in darkness is hazardous at best, often dangerous and even potentially fatal. Darkness hides obstacles that can hurt us.

Darkness prevents us from feeling free to walk about safely.

Darkness hides things from us that we need to know about.

Darkness is deception and ignorance because it keeps us from knowing what we need to know.

The cure for darkness is light. The definition of darkness is simply the absence of light to start with, so since light is the only real thing, darkness is just a term we use to describe the condition we observe when the real deal is missing.

Jesus is the only real Light that dispels ignorance and exposes deceptions. This is not just a cliché but is the only reliable way to enter into true reality. Jesus came to reveal the real truth about the Father, how He feels towards us and what His character is really like. The Father is exactly like Jesus in all of His feelings and characteristics except that He did not physically become a human being like Jesus did.

Our darkness and sin is caused by our ignorance and blindness produced by deceptions and lies about what God is like and how He thinks about us. Satan's lies about God created the conditions we know of as sin and darkness. This is because of our misapprehension of God and our belief in so many lies about Him. When we are afraid of God because of our false ideas about Him we pull away from Him and then experience the symptoms of sins in our lives. We seek to extract life from other places or people or activities, but they all leave us more desperate than before. That is the nature of sin, it promises good things to satisfy us but then deprives and robs us of what little we do have.

The woman caught in adultery found herself in that trap of darkness. She had been abused herself and had been seriously emotionally wounded at a young age through sexual abuse by a religiously pious leader who then abandoned her and shamed her. As a result she felt compelled to enter a life of promiscuity in her attempt to find life and love from any source possible. But this kind of living always drains a person dry spiritually and emotionally and she was walking in darkness, bumping into things and being taken advantage of repeatedly by those who likewise were looking to false sources for life and love. She was not only in darkness herself but was surrounded by people living in darkness with her.

Darkness produces shame, fear and violence. Darkness robs us of our freedom, for when you can't see things clearly you are stripped of your ability to walk about safely and function properly. Darkness involves denying responsibility by blaming others for our problems. Darkness is when we try to lift ourselves up by putting others down. Darkness causes people to seek pleasure and power as substitutes for real satisfaction and peace.

Darkness and the deeds of darkness tend to separate us from each other and certainly from our Creator. Living in the dark creates loneliness and fear and pain and isolation. Darkness is not how we were designed to live and thrive and grow.

We were designed for light. Light empowers us to perceive more accurately, to appreciate beauty, to be aware of danger, to be free to move about safely and to bond with others living in the light.

Our hearts were designed to crave bonding with others more than any other desire. Without healthy bonding formed in true love, our hearts always feel empty and unfulfilled. We need connections with other hearts to thrive, to feel satisfied, to be fulfilled, to feel alive. This is an indisputable fact of life and has been proved clearly by research.

This woman Jesus pardoned and restored to live in the light had been attempting to function with counterfeit bonds instead of joy bonds. She had formed many temporary attachments in life, but all of them only left her more empty than before because they were selfish attachments used only for personal pleasure, not long-term bonds of selfless love in an exclusive relationship. We are all too familiar with such temporary, exploitive attachments even if we have not engaged in the same activities as a prostitute. Counterfeit bonds are most of what we have experienced in life, but Jesus came to show us more clearly the kind of bonding we were designed to enjoy by turning on the Light.

Jesus is the Light. He is the only relationship that can bring real life and joy and peace into the soul. He is the only source of that real love that must be present for any bond to remain stable and fulfilling. He is the Light of life, and life is what we crave the most. It is hard-wired into the deepest part of our psyche, the very survival instinct that God implanted within us at creation.

Our wiring was changed and severely damaged when sin entered our race. But we still crave and need life and the only way we can ever experience peace and satisfaction is to return to our original Designer to have our circuits repaired and our operating system restored and the viruses removed. As we allow the Light of life to be infused into our experience and our hearts, we will again begin to feel alive, to connect with others and to synchronize with the heart of our heavenly Father who designed us for love.

Living in the Light is not something I can work hard to achieve by trying to be good enough. Jesus says here that if I follow Him, pursue an intimate relationship with Him by personal acquaintance and stay in communion with Him, bonding with Him in every way possible – then the natural result will be that I will no longer have to walk in the dark because I have the Light.

That's what a light does. It dispels the darkness naturally. I don't have to do anything to get rid of darkness for that is foolishness. The only way darkness and all the problems associated with it will be solved is to get a light.

Jesus, I choose You as my light today. Fill me with Your presence of life and joy and peace.