Dr. Rodney Plunket

In the October 2001 issue of National Geographic there is an article entitled “The Power of Light” by Joel Achenbach.  There is some great stuff in that article.  I learned a great deal about light’s mystery and power.

With regard to light’s mystery, Achenbach reports, “Light moves through space as a wave, but when it encounters matter it behaves like a particle.  It simply doesn’t fit into one of our neat little categories.”  Achenbach also quotes Sidney Perkowitz, a physicist at Emory University, who says, “Light, indeed, is different from anything else we know” (p 15).  The mystery of light is so profound that scientists have difficulty even telling us what it is.

The power of light we have all become aware of as we have become more accustomed to the use of lasers.  The word laser is an acronym.  It stands for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation;” aren’t you glad they just call them lasers?  Charles Townes and his brother-in-law Arthur Schawlow invented the laser in the 1950’s.  They had little idea of the force they had unleashed.  As Achenbach reports it, “They just knew that they had figured out a nifty way to make light shine strong and straight” (p 25).  Co-inventor Charles Townes says, “People used to kid me, ‘Lasers are a solution looking for a problem.’”  Now we use lasers to scan the price of products at the store, to correct faulty vision, and to transmit information and our voices down an optical-fiber phone line.

The ability to use light to transmit via an optical-fiber phone line keeps increasing.  Bob Windeler, an optical-fiber researcher, is quoted as saying, “The amount of information you can put on a fiber more than doubles every year”; and Achenbach adds, “In theory a single fiber could someday transmit every phone call on earth simultaneously” (p 28).  Here is how it works:  “Lasers are used to beam different wavelengths of infrared light down a single fiber.  Each wave­length is its own data channel––its own pipe.  Right now, a fiber can carry dozens of these channels, but that could become thousands or even millions” (Ibid.).  The mind boggles.

In our Scripture reading this morning (John 1:1-4; 8:12; 12:44-46) we heard, “What has come into being in [Jesus] was life, and the life was the light of all people” (John 1:3c-4).  We also heard Jesus call Himself “the light of the world” (John 8:12b) and proclaim, “I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness” (John 12:46).

What does the mystery and power of the light that exists in abundance in the universe have to do with Jesus?  Clearly there is some relationship or Jesus would not have referred to Himself as “the light of the world.”  But we do not have to know anything about waves, particles, lasers, or optical-fibers to comprehend the meaning that Jesus seeks to convey.  Jesus refers to Himself as “the light” to communicate that God’s truth was in Him––in His teachings, His life, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension to the right hand of God.  Anyone who receives/trusts/has faith in that light is delivered from spiritual darkness.

With that awareness in mind, please open your Bible to John 3:11-21.  As you turn there I should let you know that in the preceding section, John 3:1-11, Jesus talks with a leader of the Jews named Nicodemus.  He talks to him about being born again from above by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Nicodemus has trouble understanding that concept, so Jesus responds with the words found in John 3:11-21.  Please follow along as I read that response.

“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony.  If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?  No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.  And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.  And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.  For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.  But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Do you hear the sharp contrast?  Those who do not believe/who do not put their faith in the Light love the darkness because their deeds are evil.  People whose deeds are evil want them hidden.  They do not want them to be exposed.  Through these words we come to realize that Jesus’ uses the light to make clear that His truth takes people out of the darkness of evil and wickedness.  These words also make clear that the light of Jesus has the power to expose, to expose the evil of deeds done in darkness.  Some people love those deeds.  They love the darkness.  They hate the light because it reveals the true nature of their lives.

So now I ask.  What will you love, and what will you hate?  Do you want to live in the darkness or in the light?  And before you answer, note that Jesus offers no midway position that allows a person to live partially in the darkness and partially in the light.  To turn to the Light is to turn away from evil.  And notice what Jesus says about those who come to the Light; He says, “those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”  Those who come to the Light are those who want it exposed “that their deeds have been done in God.”  The phrase “in God” could also be translated as “through God” or “with God.”  So those who come to the Light do not do so to have their personal righteousness put on display.  They do so to show the power of God to create good deeds within them.

Once there was a person who was feeling the pull of God, the pull to come to God for deliverance and transformation.  God sent a dream to cause the person to count the cost of surrendering life to God.  In the dream was a house which represented that person’s life.  The house was totally dark.  The person stumbled and felt around and discovered that the house was full of “the loved things,” the evil things that would have to be left behind for conversion to take place.

Then Jesus appeared.  His light flooded the house and fully exposed the wickedness of those loved things.  The dreamer was horrified at the grotesque ugliness exposed by the light of Christ.

The light of Christ was so pure and powerful that the brilliance of it began to catch the loved things on fire.  They were burning away, being destroyed right before the dreamer’s eyes.

The dreamer felt this incredible desire to run through the house and gather up all of those loved things in order to hide them from the light.  But the dreamer also felt joy at having all of those loved things burned up and destroyed.  But to burn up all of those things would mean catastrophic change.  What would friends think when they discovered that everything that had once been valued had now been rubbished?  But the freedom, the freedom from the distorting power of those things, the freedom to be a child of God.

The pull was awful.  The dreamer struggled and twisted and sweated and woke up falling out of bed onto the floor.

Now awake the question was alive and strong and real, and it was a question from God.  Do you love the light, or do you love the deeds of darkness?  Do you want the pleasures of this world, or do you want the joy of eternal life from God?

I hope you’re awake.  I hope you will face this question.  I hope you will hate the darkness and come to the light.  Please come now as we stand and sing.

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