Last December I had a date to duck hunt with a friend on the Willamette River. I left our home in Central Oregon at 3 am. I was supposed to meet him at 6:00 am on a gravel road where we park and walk to hunt our flooded field.
I took a new route to our hunting spot, trying to save some time. At 5:45 am I was lost. It was dark and rainy, and somehow I missed to turnoff to our spot. It’s easy to get lost in the dark. Finally, I saw a sign that said “Unionville – 2 miles” and I realized where I was. I turned around, headed south, and arrived at the rendezvous stop in the nick of time. We set out our decoys in the dark and hid in the blind. Several ducks wished I hadn’t seen that sign!
What if there were signs pointing to longer, stronger, better life? Would you put your headlights on bright and look hard to see them?
4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. John 1:4-5, NIV
In the first few verses of his Life Book, John called Jesus “the Word.” Here He calls Him “the light.” Jesus is audio-visual aliveness. John says it this way in another letter he wrote:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 1 John 1:1-2, NIV
Look at that again. John doesn’t call Jesus “a light.” He calls Him “the light.” Then he goes on to call Him “the eternal life.” How can a person be ‘eternal life?’
Then John says Jesus is light that can’t be extinguished: “What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.” John 1:4-5, MSG
One ,minute life-question: This passage refers to Jesus as the Life and the Light. How do you see these two things reflected in the nature of God?