March 22 - Lent 4

Light Saves
John 3:14-21
Lent 4 – March 22, 2009

When I was a kid growing up in northwestern Pennsylvania, I was lucky enough to live down the road from my cousins. My brother & sisters and I always loved to go down the hill to their house in the summer and play with them. Some of our favorite games were games like Flashlight Tag, which is like Hide & Seek, but the person who was it had to tag you with light from the flashlight; Another favorite was Kick the Can – another variation on the Hide & Seek game, where a coffee can or paint can was home base, and to be safe, you had to get to the can & kick it. We loved to play these games in the summer outside in the dark & because we lived out in the country, it was plenty dark – no street lights or anything. We had a great time running & hiding from each other – darkness offers great places to hide! It's much harder to be caught if you stay out of the light.

That's pretty much what the gospel of John is talking about to us this morning. Jesus is talking here to Nicodemus who was a religious leader, and interestingly enough, he came to talk to Jesus at night, in the dark. And Jesus says to him, “people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light & do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed” (vv 19-20). In other words, he says, people choose darkness over light, because darkness gives us great places to hide! It's harder to get caught when you stay out of the light. And our reasons for not wanting to get caught are much more serious than any child's game.

We may not think of our deeds as evil – evil is such a strong word with such a negative connotation – we don't want to apply it to ourselves; but the reality is, all of us have some things we don't want brought into the light. The service for Night Prayer in our hymnal has a prayer of confession that starts like this: “I confess that I have sinned against you this day. Some of my sin I know – the thoughts and words and deeds of which I am ashamed - ...” (p. 321). All of us have them, these thoughts and words and deeds of which we are ashamed, and precisely because we are ashamed of them, those are exactly the things we want to keep out of sight, hidden in the dark, locked away from view, because we do not want to be exposed. We don't want anyone else to see our secret selves, the parts of us that we know don't measure up. And so we play our own version of Hide & Seek in the dark, always keeping trying to keep out of the light, always trying desperately not to get caught.

We do that because we're afraid of what will happen if we get caught – John's gospel says that we don't want to be exposed & I think that's because we think that exposure will come with judgment and condemnation. We think that if Jesus saw us how we truly are, the way we sometimes see ourselves, he'd reject us and punish us for our evil deeds. It's a scary thing to think about coming out into the light, because the light doesn't offer us any place to hide.

But I learned a few things about light from playing those games so many years ago. One is that you can't stay in the dark forever, because sooner or later, hiding in the dark gets old. It gets cold & lonely out there in the dark & eventually you find yourself wanting to be “home”. And in order to get home, you've gotta take a risk and come out into the light, because that's where home is.

And another thing I learned about the light happened the time my cousin Karen twisted her ankle running around while we were playing Kick the Can out in the dark. While she was in the dark, all she knew was that she was hurting – she couldn't be sure of exactly what was wrong. If she wanted to discover what was really wrong, she had to come to the light. If she wanted to get help, she had to leave the darkness; the only place she could find healing was in the light. And when you're hurt and come home to the light, you don't worry about being caught. The rules of the game change when you need help.

Changing the rules is exactly what God did by sending the only Son. Because God knew that we were alone and hurting out there in the dark. God knew that the only place we could find hope and healing for what is wrong with us, for the sin that stalks us in the dark, is in Jesus, the light of the world. And God knew that we were afraid to come into the light.

And so God sent Jesus to be lifted up, raised up on the cross, light for all the world to see, and God yelled, “Ollie, ollie, oxen free” - at least that's what we used to yell to let everyone know that you didn't have to worry about being caught anymore, it was safe to come on home.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him!”

The old rules don't apply anymore. We don't have to be afraid of judgment and condemnation and exposure. Jesus knows what we are doing out there in the dark, and he loves us anyway. He calls us to come into the light so that there we can receive the hope and healing he offers. There in Christ's light, there is forgiveness and an invitation to live a new life, not based in fear or guilt, but instead rooted in God's deep and abiding love for each of us, the love God revealed on a cross. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.” Eternal life starts now, when we come out of the darkness and into the light of Christ's love. God is calling, “Ollie ollie oxen free!” It's safe to come home. Come live in the light. Amen.