The Light of the Cross

Text: John 12:23-46

Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, Utah

march 26, 2023  fifth Sunday in Lent

            Next Sunday begins Holy Week.  It begins with Palm Sunday which remembers when Jesus rode into Jerusalem for what would be the final week of his pre-resurrected life.  We will celebrate Communion.

On Maundy Thursday we remember Jesus’ last night with his disciples before his death. On that night he gave his disciples the bread and the cup for the first time. He also washed their feet and gave us the new and great commandment to love one another.

Then, on Good Friday, we will have a very contemplative service, hearing the story of Jesus’ passion with prayer and song, with quiet and candles.  All of these services will be highly meaningful.

Come to church this much? And two nights in a row?!? It we are going to call ourselves Christians, say all our hope and glory is in the cross, that it isn’t too much to expect that we will give ourselves to worship by remembering the very essential events of our faith.

 This place is packed out on Christmas Eve.  Right?  Our Good Friday service might get 20 people.  But those 20 will want to be here, because you know what Jesus has done for you.

 And on Resurrection Sunday, we will celebrate Christ risen from the dead with a Sunrise service, and then our regular service at 11 AM.  Holy Week is the most important week for followers of Jesus Christ.

We live in dark times. Which is not to say this world and our lives and experiences don’t have their share of beauty and goodness, but we have to admit that much of our world is a dark place. When children can suffer as they do, and violence sky rockets, and dictators can kill off millions through war and famine, and people feel such fear and depression, things are dark.

 There is a darkness in the groans of creation from disasters that are no one’s fault, but yet bring suffering to so many.  Turkey and Syria are suffering from the darkness of earthquakes, and not enough food, water, medical care and too much death.

  Darkness is in our newspapers, our movies, the shows we watch, and the books we read.  Several times I have picked up a novel at the library in hopes of a good read, only to have to put it down later because of the dark themes and nature of the book.  Our culture gives awards to people who create some of these things.

 There is darkness among those we live with – within our families, between neighbors, between races and nations.  Husbands and wives against each other, or living in relationships that have long lost love and mutual concern.  Homes divided.  People in society hurting, attacking, and abusing one another.

 There is darkness within ourselves.  We despair.  We are lonely.  We don’t see ourselves as valuable or loved.

Darkness means you can’t see very well, and we often can’t see ourselves or each other very well.  We can’t always see what we are like, what our purpose is, where we are headed.  We can’t always see others – their needs, hurts, hopes.  We all have times of uncertainty and insecurity, of being lost, and of being afraid.

Darkness is what we most often pray about.  Think about the types of things you pray about.[1]

The dark days of winter can be punishing for people.  I know a young woman who just moved to Salt Lake City after a few years in Anchorage, Alaska.  She just couldn’t live in the months of almost constant darkness where the sun is pretty much gone.

 Are our times any darker than others?  There was an actual period of human history called “The Dark Ages”.  But I’ve heard that there has been more killing and death in the last 100 years than all of previous human history combined.

 John, in the third chapter of his Gospel, gives this haunting commentary on human beings, “…the people loved darkness rather than the light…”[2]  Is it true?

 God didn’t create this world for such darkness.  But when we his creatures willfully rebelled, men and women chose darkness rather than light.  And the prince of this world - the prince of darkness - began to reign.

 But God, who loves us, did not leave us to the darkness.  He came himself, in Jesus Christ, to defeat it.  And the way he did this was through the cross.

There is the darkness of living life for ourselves with ourself at the center.  We hear more about self-care and the need to feel good about oneself.  When life is all about our self we live in the dark cell of our ego. Jesus frees his followers from having to manage one’s own image, which is a form of idolatry.  To live in his light is to find our self in him, to be free of self in order to be for God and others.

 Jesus came into this world and had the audacity to say that he was the light of the world.  John begins his gospel by calling Jesus the light that shines in the darkness that the darkness has not comprehended or overcome.[3]

 Jesus said when he would be lifted up people would be able to walk in the light.  When he spoke of being lifted up he was speaking about his crucifixion on the cross.

Jesus said several things about his death.

 First, he tells a kind of parable about a kernel of wheat falling to the ground and dying.  Unless it dies it cannot produce many seeds.  Here is a hint of resurrection, because when Jesus is placed in the earth he will then rise to produce life.

 Second, Jesus admits his heart is troubled about this.  Jesus is not stoic.  He was not some extraterrestrial being who is immune from the real pain and hurt of the world.   He was fully human, and death did not appeal to him anymore than it would appeal to you or me.  Jesus experiences darkness. But he knows this is how he is to glorify the Father, and how he will be glorified.

 Third, Satan, the prince of this world, will be defeated through Jesus’ death.  Jesus defeats the darkness by going into the darkness.  Christ took the worst and most savage forces that the darkness could bring, allowing the darkness to close in on him on the cross.

 This was difficult for people to hear because they were looking for a triumphant king, not a suffering servant who was going to die in humiliation.  Jesus, if he was going to be the Messiah, was supposed to be a winner, not a loser. Only losers died on crosses.

 But God’s plan was greater than human understanding.              Jesus says that when he is lifted up on the cross he would draw all people to himself. His cross would be like a light.

Jesus goes from talking about his being lifted up, to walking and trusting in the light.  From the cross will come light.

Listen to what the Lord said through the prophet Isaiah about the Messiah:

It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept.  I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth…

I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people…to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’  (Isaiah 49:6, 8,9)

A light to the all people.  Freedom for those who are in darkness.

“…when I am lifted up…”  There was light in his cross.  Lights are meant to be seen.

Something about the sight of the Son of God up on a cross brings people to repentance, new birth and eternal life.  How can it be that the mere view of the cross can do this?

I don’t know that intellectually we can figure this out.  Maybe that is why Paul spoke of the cross as foolishness to the world.

The thought of God coming to suffer, and becoming entangled in the world’s evil and pain might be too deep, too heavy, too mysterious for us to get.

Jesus says if he is lifted up, if he is seen on the cross, it is going to bring light.  Light helps us see.  It guides.  It reveals.  It reveals this world, and it reveals ourselves.

I know this: the cross helps me see my sin.  Why else would Jesus be there?  The cross reveals my self-centeredness, and my inability to make it with God on my own.  It reveals the darkness within us.

 Light often allows us to see more.  When we look at the cross our small and narrow view of the world, our view of ourselves, and how we view the person we don’t like becomes bigger.[4] The dark prison cell of our egos gets opened up and we are called to come out and be free.

One time I had a severe conflict with someone in a church where I was pastor.  The conflict blindsided me as I didn’t know this person had such strong feelings of anger and bitterness toward me. You know how it is when someone is angry with you, and you feel treated unfairly: we can get defensive, feel hurt, and uncertain.

This person caused a lot of pain for me.  A lot.  It felt very dark.  It was the type of thing where you lose sleep and don’t have any peace.

Attempts to talk and get reconciliation didn’t work.  It was a miserable place to be.

One day as I sat in the choir loft of the church where I would sit before the Lord in my morning times of devotion, I began to see this pain, this person, and this situation in light of the cross.

 I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but the Lord showed me that I needed to see this in light of the cross.  Jesus died for that person just as much as he died for me.

In the light of the cross I saw this person not as an enemy but as someone who had hurts and wounds beyond what I knew.  I saw myself as a sinner, equally in need of God’s forgiveness.  And the hardness I had built up toward this person began to soften.  Compassion and mercy began to fill my heart.

 The conflict never changed.  I changed.

 This person never really came to like me.  But I began to respond not with resistance and hostility, but with prayer and whatever love I could muster.  And you know what?  A lot of the hurt and the heaviness disappeared.  The darkness of resentment and pain was replaced with the light of God’s compassion and mercy.

 At the cross, everyone and everything gets reduced to the lowest common denominator which is that all are sinful and in need of the grace of God.  No one can boast before God.  None of us have it all together.  None of us do it right all the time.  None of us can stand before God and show him our morality, ethics, or lives and say “look at how glorious I am.” To imagine we can is to, what Jesus calls, walk in the darkness.

 For me it was a sort of crucifixion. The darkness inside me subsided.  The dark cell of my ego was opened up.  I experienced light.    I had to do some dying.  But unless a kernel of wheat dies, there is no growth…no resurrection.

 I have had subsequent crucifixions since that time none of them pleasant.  Probably because it is usually my pride and ego that gets crucified.  And those things tend to be very much alive.  I don’t know how it is with you, but as my pride dies Jesus begins to live more and more in me.

 Where is your dark place?  Where is the conflict, the battle, the fight for you right now?  Maybe it is with someone else.  Maybe it is within yourself.  Maybe it is on a larger scale.  Maybe some situation, memory or circumstance. Wherever it is right there is where Christ must be lifted up.  Right there is the cross.  Right there is where the light of the cross needs to shine in your life.

 Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians that the god of this world has blinded people to keep them from seeing the light of the glory of Christ. “For it is God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”[5]

 By being lifted up Jesus cast out the god of this world. By being lifted up the light of Christ begins to shine.      In the light of the cross we see ourselves. And when we see ourself - when we really see ourself – we are drawn to the Lord.

 Jesus said, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.”[6]

 What’s falling apart in you or around you?  What needs healing, strengthening, transforming?  What needs resurrection?  What needs light? Let the Son of God and his cross be lifted up right there.

Prayer: Glorious God, the cross of your Son gives light.  Help us to walk in his light.  Bring out any in this place who are walking in darkness.  Lead them to your cross and your light.

As we move closer to Holy Week prepare our hearts to honor your loving sacrifice for us.

Amen.

[1] See Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark, p.50)

[2] 3:19

[3] John 1:5

[4] From William Willimon, Drawing All to Himself, Christian Century, March 24, 1982

[5] 2 Corinthians 4:6

[6] John 12:46