Today’s Scripture

Psalm 142       Isaiah 42:14-21           Ephesians 5:8-14        John 9:13-17, 34-39

 

            “Wake up and see the daylight!” is an expression to someone who just isn’t getting the picture of what is happening around him.  The person is lost in a darkness that he cannot see what the truth of the situation is.  Wake up – open your eyes.

 

            Today, the 3^rd Sunday in Lent is traditionally called Oculi in the church.  Oculi is the Latin word for eyes.  Eyes and opening eyes to see is predominant in today’s readings.  David writes Psalm 142 while hiding in a cave from King Saul’s attempts on his life.  He wants to get back out into the daylight.  He wants to see something other than the darkness of Saul’s anger and persecution of him.  This cave, this darkness, was a prison to him. 

 

            In Isaiah’s Servant Song of Praise, is the prophecy that God’s servant, his son Jesus will “lead the blind by ways they have not known.”  Jesus will be the eyes, the sight for the blind.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus gives sight back to a blind man.  Just prior to these verses Jesus had just proclaimed, “I am the light of the world.”  [v. 3] 

 

            In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, God uses the motif of light and darkness to urge you to be as he already has made you in Christ, “children of light.”  Take time today or in your readings this week, to read the entire section beginning in Ephesians 4, Living as Children of Light.”  Paul takes us from our original sinful state, our old selves “darkened in understanding,” to new selves knowing Christ.

 

            Once, at one time, how each person starts in this world, is in darkness.  Babies eyes are closed at birth and they squint when brought into the brightened delivery room.  There must be some pain and frightening in these first moments of life as the infant cries and needs to immediately be comforted in the arms of its parent, its maker.  In Genesis 1 God separated the light from the darkness and called the light “good.”  As soon as Adam and Eve sinned they hid in the shadows, the darkness they could find in Eden, trying to hide from being exposed for that sin in the light around them.  How are you and I like them?

 

            “But now…”  A change has happened.  “You are light in the Lord.”  Remember that light is good.  There is only one way to be made good again, and that is in God and God alone.  That is in the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  That is in the one true God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three persons in one God.  That is the God who says, “You shall have no other Gods,” period.  It is by this one and only God alone that you are changed back to light.  God is the agent of change and no one and nothing else.  He created you.  He redeemed you.  And he makes you holy, his dear child again.

 

            God called you by the Gospel.  It is only through hearing the word of Jesus Christ that you come to faith.  He enlightens you with his gifts, gives you the power to believe and the will to please him and to follow his commands.  Knowing that God has made you his child, he commands you to “…live as children of light.”  Just as a parent expects a child to live a life that pleases the parent, God commands us, his dear children, to live lives that reflect him.  The fruit of his light in your life is the evidence of faith such as goodness, righteousness and truth.  Others do not see God’s love if you do not demonstrate these qualities outwardly.  That is why James has written, “Faith without works is dead.”  Where there is no evidence of faith, there is no faith.  Where there are the fruits of faith, they can come only because there is faith. 

 

            “…and find out what pleases the Lord.”  It is a daily walk in the believer’s life to seek out God’s commands and love, his promises and his gifts.  That is done through reading and hearing his word.  That is done through studying God’s word together and sharing each other’s knowledge to strengthen each other’s understanding and confidence in faith.  Even though God’s law is written in our hearts, we do not and cannot know his plan of salvation unless we see it in the light of his word to us, the light of Jesus, his son, our Lord and Savior, who is the “…light of the world.”  There is no other light.

 

            God gives a stern reprimand.  Earlier in Ephesians, he gives examples of living in the darkness of sin.  God says to have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness.  In fact, do not even discuss evil and evildoers.  Do not entertain sinfulness in your thoughts and your discussions.  It is so easy to enjoy entertainment that includes lust, crimes of passion, jealousies and anger and all kinds of evil stuff.  Leave it alone, God says, so that it does not influence you even in your deepest thoughts and desires.  Hanging around in the darkness leaves you open prey to the things of darkness.

 

            “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you,” [v. 14].  Jesus alone is the source of our light.  When things get the gloomiest and the most hopeless and helpless, like David in the cave and the blind man who cried out for Jesus, it is God’s love in Jesus alone that is the light.  God’s law, is light that exposes our sinfulness and the evil and sinfulness in the evil world around us.  God’s Gospel, the Good News of his saving grace in Jesus is the light that shows leads us out of darkness to live in that glorious light, now and forever.

 

Psalm 13:3  Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death.

 

Psalm 25:15  My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only he will release my feet from the snare.

 

Psalm 141:8  But my eyes are ever on you, O God, the Lord, in you I take refuge---do not give me over to death.

 

Hebrews 12:2  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…

 

John 9:3 (Jesus said) I am the light of the world.                                 Amen.