"HIS NATURE IS LIGHT"

John 1:6-8, 19-28


Posted November 18, 1999

Dr. Arthur G. Ferry, Jr., Pastor


    We run across truth in the strangest places. Sometime back it was revealed that there is a course in a major university on Donald Duck comic books. These particular comics were created by Carl Barks. From the early '40s until his retirement in 1966, Barks produced some 400 comics about Donald Duck, his Uncle Scrooge, a stingy billionaire, and three frenetic nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

    In one classic series, the rich uncle's billions nearly have driven him crazy. Everybody is asking him for money, and Scrooge is gulping nerve medicine by the bottle. In an attempt to save his sanity, Scrooge parachutes with Donald and the nephews into a remote, agrarian village named Trala-La, a parody of Shagri-La, the Utopia in James Hilton's novel, "Lost Horizon."

    But Scrooge makes the mistake of carelessly discarding a nerve-medicine bottle cap, and the natives begin using it as money. They fight over the cap, and disrupt their idyllic existence. Scrooge brought plenty of medicine to Trala-La and because he has lots of bottle caps again finds himself the richest person around. He decides to teach the natives a lesson by having a plane rain bottle caps on the village to devalue the currency. The caps soon threaten to bury the village and fill its lake. Scrooge turns off the cap shower, and everybody learns that money can be the root of all evil.

    The final scene shows the three nephews asking Scrooge to pay them for accompanying him on the trip. Scrooge soon is gulping nerve medicine again. He can run but he cannot hide. Everybody wants money from him.

    In another strip, the wind distributes Scrooge's money equally among the world's population. What do the newly rich do? Take a vacation, of course. Meanwhile Scrooge continues to tend his farm. In the end, everybody lines up to buy ears of corn from him. Spreading the wealth has failed. Scrooge is the richest man around again.

    What Barks seems to be saying is that Uncle Scrooge by his very nature attracts wealth. Even if his circumstances change, he will still end up at the top financially because of who he is and the things he values.

    In the Gospel of John we are told the same sort of thing about Christ. We are told that Christ is the light that has come into the world. In other words, there is something about Christ's very nature--something unique that has never existed in a human being before. His very presence dispels darkness. The Christmas season is a celebration of the light that has overcome darkness.

    There are three great truths about the light which is Christ that we need to explore this morning.

    THE FIRST IS THE REASON FOR HIS COMING.

Why did he come? To reveal God to us? Most probably. Perhaps, though, he also came to discover what it means to be human.

Author Alex Haley was researching his historic work, ROOTS. At one point he had a terrible sense of emptiness over his inability to `feel' the torment slaves must have experienced as they lay trapped in chains aboard ships heading to strange new lands. One night, he says, it came to him what he had to do. He needed to thrust himself into some circumstance that could let him feel at least something of what those Africans must have felt.

He borrowed enough money to fly to Africa, and there he purchased a one-way passenger ticket back to the United States aboard The African Star, a cargo ship that sailed from Monrovia, Liberia, to Jacksonville, Florida.

Because he understood the physical design of vessels from his Coast Guard career, he was able to sneak at night into one of the ship's unlocked holds. For 2 nights, after dinner, he crawled into the cavernous, darkened hold. He stripped to his underwear and lay on his back on some broad, thick, rough- -sawed timber that had been wedged between sections of cargo to prevent shifting in heavy seas.

It was not a pleasant voyage. He had a miserable cold by the 3rd night. By the 4th night he abandoned his Quixotic adventure altogether. He knew that he, a passenger, safe and snug on a strong steel cargo ship, eating 3 meals daily could never really `feel' the suffering of those chained so many years before in the bowels of a slave ship! Still, the journey was important for him to touch his origins.

We can only speculate as to Christ's reasons for making his way into the world of humanity that first Christmas. Surely, though, sharing with us a common humanity is a possibility. It's always helpful to put yourself even temporarily in someone else's shoes.

In 1974, the son of Alabama governor George Wallace told his father that he was involved in a sociological experiment for a college course. What George, Jr. couldn't tell Daddy was the nature of the experiment. He and a black co-ed were playing the role of an interracial engaged couple looking for an apartment. That was probably an eye-opening experience for young George. It always helps to see things through another's eyes.

Think how completely Jesus experienced what it means to be human. Born to hardworking but poor parents. Earning a living in the carpenter's shop till age 30. Brief popularity but then ultimate rejection by his own people. Physical suffering beyond what most of us can imagine. Then death. Surely he knows where we are coming from. He has walked through the same valley. He is light because of the reason for his coming.

THERE IS ALSO THE REALITY OF HIS SACRIFICE.

The newspapers recently carried a news story with which some of us can identify. A California State Highway Patrol Officer received a call. A woman was about to jump from a bridge. Immediately, the officer was confronted with a dilemma. The officer herself has an extreme fear of heights, and the jumper was perched on the railing of a bridge that is 443 feet above the floor of a deep gorge. Some of you can appreciate her situation.

The officer forced herself, however, to walk calmly toward the woman and sit down beside her. There, high above that gorge, they talked for 2 hours while the officer struggled with her own panic. Finally, the jumper agreed to come away from the railing and get help.

At this Christmas time we need to remind ourselves that love is not measured by the size of a gift or the beauty of a verbal profession. It is best measured by a willingness to sacrifice. By that measure, love certainly did come down at Christmas. Christ was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.

In 1933 the Morgan family, a group of itinerant revivalists, camped on the town square in Murphy, North Carolina. They hung their wash from the Confederate monument. They were asked to leave, and pleading poverty, asked permission to hold one more service. At that service, a lovely girl, with unwashed blonde hair, sang 3 lines of a song. In the congregation sat John Jacob Niles, a collector of mountain folk songs.

After the service he gave her 25 cents to sing the song again. He did this 3 more times but each time got only the same 3 lines. She didn't know where she got them, and Niles never found the source, but he enlarged on those 3 lines and gave the world that lovely Christmas song, "I wonder as I wander out under the sky./Why Jesus the Savior did come forth for to die." All of us must wonder what there is about "poor ornery creatures like you and like I" that could inspire such love. It must be that his very nature is love. Said Jesus, "To this end was I born and for this purpose came I into the world." The reason for his coming. The reality of his sacrifice.

FINALLY, THERE IS THE REASSURANCE OF HIS PRESENCE.

Does it matter that he is Immanuel, God with us? Does he really light up our lives here and now? He does if we can come to him with the innocence and trust of a little child.

In the comic FOR BETTER OR WORSE, little Elizabeth is sitting near the Christmas tree, looking at the neatly wrapped gifts. Her father says, "Elizabeth, it's too early to open anything yet."

Elizabeth replies, "I know. I was just thinking about all the kids who don't have presents to wake up to. I was thinking about kids in the hospital, kids who are lonely....I was just thinking how lucky I am." Then she pauses, looks up, and says, "Christmas is Jesus' birthday, isn't it, Daddy. I wish I could give Him something."

Her father smiles, gives her a big hug and says, "Honey, you already have!" If somehow we can capture that kind of love and selflessness, then it can be said that his light dwells in our heart.

Dr. James Dobson tells about a man named Paul who was a child abuse victim. Paul grew up to be a child abuser. That's usually the way it works. Both of Paul's parents were alcoholics. When Paul was seven, his mother came home from a party so drunk she fell unconscious until Paul found her the next morning lying in the snow.

She contracted pneumonia and died, and Paul ran crying to his drunken father for comfort. His father beat him with his fists and screamed, "Shut up, boys don't cry like babies!" Paul's nose and two ribs were broken, and his teeth were knocked out. He and his siblings were regularly beaten by their father. Paul shot his first person when he was 12. He went to jail.

Five years later, he met Jesus Christ through a Billy Graham film. Eventually he got out, married, and had a little girl.

One Christmas finances were tough in Paul's household. Paul managed to scrounge up a few dollars he was owed and gave his wife $8 to go to the store and buy food. She foolishly spent $1 for wrapping paper and tape. While he and his wife fought, his 3-year old daughter got into the wrapping paper and wasted it making a crude gift. When Paul saw this, he reverted to the behavior he had seen as a child, and beat his toddler violently. He cannot talk about this to this day without crying.

The next day when gifts were exchanged, the little girl ran behind the tree and retrieved her crude present, handed it to Paul and said, "Daddy, this is for you!" He was embarrassed that he had hit her so cruelly for something she thought was a present. He slowly opened the box--and discovered it was totally empty. His temper flared once more and he said, "What have you done? There's nothing in this box. Why did you give me an empty box? When you give someone a present you're supposed to put a gift inside it!"

The tiny girl looked up at her father and said innocently, "Oh, no, Daddy. The box is not empty! It is full of love and kisses for you. I blew kisses in there for my daddy and I put love in there too. And it is for you."

Paul was crushed. He hugged his little girl and begged her to forgive him. Then he fell to his knees and pleaded for God to cleanse him of his terrible temper. He kept the box by his bed for years, and whenever he was hurt or discouraged he would reach in and pull out an imaginary kiss, place it on his cheek, and say, "Thank you Lord."

If this were the children's sermon, I might have a box for each of you to take home with you this morning. If you were to open the box, it would appear empty.

Inside it, though, would be the love of Jesus Christ--a love that is still transforming lives 2,000 years after he walked the shores of the Sea of Galilee. If you had such a box, you could reach into it whenever you are hurt or discouraged and pull out an imaginary kiss. I don't have such a box. Each of you has a Bible, though. Each of you has a place where you can bow in prayer. The opportunity is already present for you to experience his love and his strength in those hours of need. Light has come into our world.





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