Читать книгу Faith and Duty: Sermons on Free Texts, with Reference to the Church-Year - L. B. Buchheimer - Страница 10

Table of Contents

I am the Light of the world.—John 8, 12.

Underneath Rome, the ancient capital of the world, and extending for miles and miles between the River Tiber and the Mediterranean Sea, are those mysterious passages called the catacombs. How far they go, whither they lead, at what exact point they terminate, no living man can tell. From the examinations of the learned who have explored them for some little distance, at some few points, we know that they are long and narrow quarries in the rock; underground roads mined out of the soft volcanic tufa, or stone, on both sides of which the early Christians, who would not burn, but insisted on burying their dead, would deposit their departed, and where during these fierce persecutions they would also assemble for worship. These passages are but high enough to walk upright through them; they are so narrow in width that you can touch the sides on either hand, as you grope along, and they are unutterably silent and dark. If you strain your eye forward, you see nothing beyond the few feet which the feeble torch or flickering candle illumines; if you look up, the rock is there; if you gaze to the right or to the left, you see the shallow niches, like shelves, one over another, where are strewn the bones of the dead, crumbling into dust and ashes; and gazing behind you, you feel a choking sensation at the heart, that if your light should go out, or your guide should forsake you, you would never find your way back,—as it is a well-known fact that many too curious in their researches have disappeared. Such, then, are the catacombs, a subterranean home of death, a place of impenetrable darkness. And, my beloved, what better emblem could be found to illustrate what this world is like, without the Gospel of Jesus Christ, than the hopeless labyrinths of darkness underneath the City of Rome?

Take the time when our Savior pronounced these words of our text, or when, as Epiphany suggests to us, those wise men came from the East, following the star,—what darkness was spread over the earth! With the exception of the one people, numbering only a few millions at most, and these sunk away in general apostasy, aside from the little wax lights of the Jews, there was universal gloom. Around them, to the farthest limit of the earth, including enlightened and refined Greece and Rome, the whole world of man lay in heathenism and idolatry, feeling after God, but knowing Him not, worshiping and serving creatures rather than the ever-blessed Creator. Think of Egypt's adoration of bulls, rams, cats, bugs, birds, and crocodiles! Think of the Assyrian's worship, or of any of those people of antiquity, rendering to beasts or to heroes and the spirits of dead men, like the Chinese and Japanese and Hindoos of this day, the homage due unto the living God! Add to this the attendant miseries, shameless debaucheries, cruelties, revolting abominations, practiced all over in the name and belief of honoring God and meriting the favor of heaven, and it may well be said, the world was darkness, pitch black darkness. And it is so even to this present day where Christianity has not yet shed its redeeming light. It is so with every human soul; the darkness of ignorance, of sin, of misery is upon it. The man whose understanding has not yet been enlightened by the beams of spiritual truth is just like a tourist groping along, and stumbling among, the bones and dust of the catacombs. He knows not what he is living for, as little as the underground passenger knows whither he is going. Whenever misfortune and sorrow comes, there is none to turn to for consolation.

Whenever conscience is troubled and agitated with a sense of its guilt, and there are times when the spectral hand of conscience, like in the case of King Belshazzar, writes bitter things against them, there is no remedy or peace. When death comes, it is all gloom, spiritual night, a prison-house, a catacomb.

All our knowledge, sense, and sight

Lie in deepest darkness shrouded,

Till God's brightness breaks our night

By the beams of truth unclouded.

And that is the lesson of this season, which means manifestation, that is the message of Christ to the world of man and to each soul. He is the Light. As God at the beginning of the world, when it was a huge mass of confused matter, wrapped in unpenetrable darkness, spake the word: "Let there be light," and there was light, so, when humanity at the beginning of these —— years was spiritual darkness, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and men saw His glory, the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Addressing ourselves to our text, let us I. trace some points of resemblance between Christ and light; II. note the conduct which becomes us toward this Light.

The purest and most untarnishable thing in this world is light. Snow is pure, so is ice, water, and air, but each of these will admit of defilement, may be marred and polluted. It is not so with light. Man's hand cannot soil it. No corruption can infest or cleave to it. Nothing can defile its rays or attach pollution to its beams. And such is Christ. All creatures have shown themselves liable to sin and moral taint, but Christ passed through the world of sin as a sunbeam through a house of filth and disease, and came forth as pure and blessed as He sprang from God Himself. He took on Him sin's form, that He might endure sin's due, but sin's stain He never knew. In Bethlehem's manger, He was the holy Child. He lived a human life, oppressed with all its cares and temptations, grew up among its corrupt children, suffered its coarseness, its rebuffs, and its villainies, but with all this He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. He was the spotless Lamb of God, pure; for He was the Light.

Again, light is as bright as it is pure. Things are bright in proportion as they are full of light. The day is bright when no clouds shut out the sun. The scenery is bright when illumined by the greatest number of rays. The hope is bright when it is freest from gloomy forebodings and fullest of the light of promise. And such is Christ. He is brightness, "the brightness of the Father's glory," and His office is to dispense brightness. That is the brightest time in the soul when there is most of Christ in it. That is the brightest page on which most of Christ is found. That is the brightest sermon in which most of Christ is heard. That is the brightest life in which most of Christ is seen. That is the brightest world in which Christ is most fully received; and that heart, that home, that church is but confusion and darkness where Christ is not.

Light, likewise, is free. It comes without cost, and it comes everywhere. No poverty is so great as to debar from its blessing, nor is there an open crevice, a nook or corner in all this wide world into which it is unwilling to enter, or where it fails to throw its heavenlike smiles. The halls of the great and the huts of the humble does it gild alike, and that without money and without price. As related, it is free, and so is Christ. The command is: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." There is no place nor spot where its beams are not to be diffused, no heart into which it does not struggle for entrance. To the poor as well as to the rich, to Jews as well as to Gentiles is Christ offered equally freely, and on the same terms of free grace to each and all willing to accept Him. He is the true Light, ready to lighten every man that cometh into the world.

Another quality that pertains to the nature of light is that it is revealing. Darkness obscures. Where it is not light, a pit may gape at our feet, a murderer may be waiting in our path, a dagger aimed at our heart; we do not see and know, our vision is held. It requires light to perceive these things. And so in the spiritual world, Christ is the great Revealer. By Him we come to know God and our true selves. By Him we learn who and where we are, what our needs are, and how to relieve them. One of the hardest things in the world is to make people believe that they are guilty and lost beings. The reason is, they are in the dark. They need the light to show them themselves. And that light is Christ. Only let a man examine himself in the light of Christ's life and teaching, and it will not be long until he sees that self of his to be a mere mass of guilt, and things appearing quite differently in this world of imperfection and sin.

And to mention the final feature, light is life-giving. Without light the world is dead. Where the sun rarely shines, or not at all, there is barrenness, dreariness, perpetual winter, desolation. It is the warming light of spring that starts the dormant germs, that swells the buds, and clothes the vineyards, the field, and the woods with vegetation, fragrance, and plenty. So with the spiritual Light. Where Christ is not, life is not, there is spiritual barrenness, winter upon the soul. But when His beams shine in upon the soul, the seeds of virtue put forth, the tree of faith lifts up its fragrant bloom, and the fruits and flowers of love and grace spring and bud.

Thus, by a few comparisons with the material, natural light, have we sought to explain in what sense Christ is called, or rather calls Himself, the Light.

Let us inquire how we ought to conduct ourselves toward Him. First of all, if you would enjoy the blessings of this Light, you must receive the Light; the outward illumination must be followed by a corresponding inward one. What good does the light do the man who, when its morning rays shine into his room, will pull down the shades and close the shutters and pull the cover of his couch over his head? It's only the worse for the man. The thing is to receive it, to throw open the shutters of your heart, and to let its radiant sunbeams burst into its every corner and crevice. That is what it is for, and we fail of its purpose and benefit if we fail to so treat it. What if the incoming rays do show us the dust that lies upon furniture and floor? Should we therefore dislike it, reject it, or should we cleanse the furniture and the floor? What if the spiritual Sun reveals to us our darling sins and ignorances? Should we therefore avoid it and dislike it? It is extremely sorry to see the attitude of the most of mankind, how they will cling like bats and owls to darkness who fly away to some dismal haunts, and there sit and blink whenever a ray of spiritual sunlight reaches them. Christ Himself said: "Men love darkness rather than light." Let it not be so to us. Let us accept and profess it, take its blessed rays into our souls.

And, again, let us reflect it. The Bible directs us not only to be radiant and luminous ourselves, but to give light and shining so as to enlighten others, just like the moon and the planets, who, borrowing their light from the sun, are directed to do service in their way and sphere. So, borrowing from the Sun of Righteousness, we must shine forth, each in his respective sphere. "Let your light so shine before men," says our Savior, "that they may see your good works." And be it understood this pertains to every Christian, to be a lamp and light-dispensing orb. Parents are called to a large share in this office. Young men and young women in the Sunday-school partake in the same commission. The officers to be installed this morning, every man, woman, and child in the church have a large and responsible share, and charged to let his or her light shine in carrying light to the souls of others. With this opening of the new year let us be reminded of our Christian duty. Having seen the Sun of Righteousness rising over the hilltops of Bethlehem, and rejoicing in its spiritual splendors, see that the benefits be of lasting impression. Ask yourselves, at the outset, where its Sundays will find you. And know they are the rays of brightening and illumination in sacred thoughts and improvements, the days in which the divine Word shines forth in its radiancy and the gracious Light of salvation flashes in its glory; then, how can you be children of light and yet forsake the assembling of yourselves together where the light is? How can you thus be light-bearers, according to God's direction? And so in every particular. Taking on the brightness of the true Light, may it exhibit itself in your energies and activities. "No man lighteth a candle and putteth it under a bushel or under a bed, but on a candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in the house." Let it be in your houses, and if in the past year the candle of your faith and devotion has been flickering low, it's an opportune time to trim the wick afresh and to brighten the flame.

We have seen that Christ is the true and only Light. Let us believe in Him and walk in Him, now in this day of Gospel brightness and salvation,—so that we may become partakers of that still more stupendous Epiphany, that glorious manifestation, when the Son of Man shall appear in full splendor of His glory to take us home to the inheritance of the saints in light. Amen.