Walking In the Light

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

WALKING IN THE LIGHT

John 11:7-16

7 Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."  8 "But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?" 9 Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world's light. 10 It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light."  11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up."  12 His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. 14 So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."16 Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."

NIV

It sure seems obvious the disciples still really did not believe, at least based on this conversation in which Jesus told them Lazarus was dead and that he was glad he wasn’t there so they could believe. The point Jesus was making that if he had been there when Lazarus was still alive and sick, he would have healed him as he had been doing with all the others who had infirmities or illnesses, but because he did not go, Lazarus died of his illness so that Jesus could raise him from the grave and thus show his disciples the power of God, his power, that he was God in the flesh, the Son of God, not just a prophet, or a gifted man. Who but God can raise a man from the dead? But before we get too deep into the raising of Lazarus, which we have not yet come to in this story, we should spend some time on the words Jesus spoke about those twelve hours of daylight. What did he mean by that? Certainly in those days they had no clocks so the day was divided from sunrise to sunset, and of course the actually length of that time was different depending of the seasons. So because Jesus used that term before and it referred to his life, and seeing how his disciples were concerned about him being killed, he was telling them his life was not over yet, his last hour had not come, it is still daylight, and he must do the will of the Father while it is still day, while he still lives. But then he goes on to tell them about walking in the day and night. That is not the same as walking while living and walking while dead. Here he wanted them to know that while he is the light of the world, if men walk in his light they will not stumble and they will find life, but if they walk in the darkness of their own hearts they will indeed stumble into sin and death. Wake up guys; can you not see the truth? That is what Jesus was saying, “Can’t you see the light?” So here we learn the lesson in which we have to make sure we are actually walking in the light, as well as doing what God would have us to while we still can. Our life has so many hours and we need to be fulfilling the will of God while we still have hours. That means we cannot afford to retire from doing his will, even in our old age. Moses did not actually start to accomplish the will of God until he was eighty, Noah was nearly five hundred years old when God told him to build that Ark and it took him one hundred years to do it. Why do we think because we get to a certain age that we should sit back and let the younger ones do it? They do not have nearly the wisdom and experience we older folks have, yet so many of us old folks just become furniture in the church, until we think we are even too old to come be furniture. Maybe that is why some are that old. Maybe if we kept going, doing the will of God, being the person God called us to be, exercising the gift or gifts God has bestowed and empowered us with, we would not get so old and decrepit and seen as only a fixture in church to be pandered to. It is daylight and we must walk the walk, we must walk in the Spirit, doing what we have to do. There will be a day when we will no longer be able to walk; we will rest this body in the grave, and go on to be with Christ in heaven and our hours here will be over. We must continue walking in the light.