Walking in the Light

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

WALKING IN THE LIGHT

John 11:1-16

11:1 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." 4 When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."  5 Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. 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

We are going back to the opening narrative regarding Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. Having considered that death is not the end and that we will never die, we also want to go back and  look at this idea about the day and night Jesus makes reference to. According to our research, we have discovered the Jews divided the daylight into twelve amounts. It cannot be the hours we know as every single day of the year has a slightly different amount of daylight, so there is only twice a year there is exactly twelve hours of daylight, the spring and autumn equinox, in most of the world, there are a few places exactly on the earth’s equator that have a constant twelve hours of daylight all year. So Jesus is referring to the time in which there is daylight, however much time that actually was is unclear, for we do not know the exact date of our calendar year he was saying this about the day and night. Some scholars are of the opinion he was talking about his own life, that he only had a few days left, his life was about to end, and that night or death was coming and he could no longer do the work of God. But we do not think that is true, for death was not the end, and after his resurrection, he still did the work of God, for until his ascension he was seen by over five hundred people, which of course proved he was not dead, but also he still taught. We are of the thought that Jesus was speaking about life and death in regard to how we live. He said that a man walks by day for he sees this world’s light. Again, some scholars see this light as the sun, but in the Greek interlinear it is phrased, “Light of this or the world”. The Greek word ho is between light and world and is a pronoun that can be used as, this, that, the other, the one as well as others. So then Jesus could very well have meant the as long as we walk by the light of the world, and he said it himself, that he was the light of the world, we will not stumble. If however, we are not walking by his light, we are walking in darkness and we cannot see our way and we will stumble, or trip up. The parallel is outstanding. Walking in the light of Jesus keeps us from stumbling or being tripped up, which implies death. Walking in the night or in that darkness of this world, we would stumble or die. The only way to see our way to where we are going, heaven, is to walk in the light. However, if we look at it in the sense that Jesus meant his time or the amount of daylight he had left, he was going to do the work of the Father as long as he had light. If that is the case, if it was that simple of a meaning, then we too should take that lesson. We only have a certain amount of daylight left, or lifetime left. Of course, depending on our current age, some have more daylight than others to use to do the work of our Father. But the fact remains we only have a number of days left to walk in the light. So then we should be about doing the work of God while we still have light, or life. Does that imply that we cannot ever just do nothing? Does that imply that we should always, all the time, every minute of the day, be doing something Godly, doing some good deed, working continuously on behalf of God?  But that does not make much sense either, as what was Jesus doing all those years before his public ministry began. Was he working as a carpenter, making furniture? Did he play as a child? Did he eat or go fishing ever? Even after he was baptized, did he ever withdraw to be alone and pray? Did he ever sit and eat, just to eat, or sleep when he was tired, or alright, let’s be frank, was he doing the work of God when he had to use the bathroom? We have to believe this is not about always being busy, but it is about walking or living our life in the light of Jesus, making life choices in the light, living in a manner that pleases our Lord, not stumbling around in the dark. Day or night, light or darkness, life or death, which is what this is about. We have decided to walk in the light.