April 11, 2021 “Walk in the Light” – I John 1:1 – 2:2

I John 1:1 – 2:2
“Walk in the Light”
April 21, 2021 – Second Sunday of Easter

My friend Jay is retiring after forty years of teaching at Wheaton College in Illinois. His wife and son are putting together a book of written tributes to him, along with old photos. She sent me one of Jay from our days at Westmont College together and asked me to identify the other person in the picture. I saw immediately that it was our old professor Randy Springer. We used to hang out and play ping-pong with him.

On my end, I dug out a photo of Jay and myself from Beth’s and my wedding. Jay was our best man. Looking at those pictures, so much comes rushing back, like the ping pong table in Kerwood Hall and those sweltering tuxedos we wore on a 90 degree, 90 percent humidity day in St. Louis. I saw Jay earlier in his life. I recognized the other face in that first photo. I went to his wedding. I heard and saw it all with my own eyes, just like it says here about Jesus in this first letter of John.

Verse one says that John declared, “what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life.” Tradition has it that this is the same John who wrote the Gospel lesson we heard today, about Thomas hearing, seeing, and touching Jesus Christ risen from the dead. He knew what he was talking about.

As it was in his Gospel, one of John’s major concerns is that his readers can know what he knows, believe what he believes. In John 20 verse 31, after telling us about Thomas, he says that he wrote his book “so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” Here he tells us that this story of Jesus risen is the “word of life” and that “this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us.”

John wants us to know that what we believe as Christians, the very most important thing about Jesus—that He rose from the dead—is based on eyewitness testimony. That kind of testimony is at the heart of our legal system. In national view right now is a man on trial for the death of another man. Expert witnesses are being called to talk about things like proper police procedure and other relevant matters. But the key evidence, the key witnesses, are the people who were right there listening and watching it unfold with their own eyes. There are also those who examined George Floyd’s body after he died. To that is added what can be seen on video from cameras of witnesses and the body cameras of police officers. The court is relying on what was heard, seen and touched.

Of course, you probably know that public opinion is divided on that trial happening in Minneapolis. Some of us believe that the evidence already available makes it plain that a murder and gross miscarriage of justice took place. Others wish to accord Floyd’s death to factors other than the force used to restrain him. Still others would like to reserve an opinion until the jury decides. But even then, it’s fairly apparent that people will continue to disagree and be divided over the death of George Floyd and what it means for American justice, whatever the outcome of the trial. Likewise, there was disagreement in John’s time about how to interpret the facts and what they meant for those who heard the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

That’s why, beyond his primary objective of wanting us to believe in what John and the other disciples heard and saw and touched, John in verse 3 has another goal, “we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us.” If you read on in I John and pay attention, you will find that “fellowship” was a key issue for the Christians to whom John wrote. In chapter 2 and chapter 3 and chapter 4 we find that John is quite worried about whether Christian believers in Jesus actually love each other. He makes it clear that even if they believe all that testimony about Jesus risen from the dead, that if they are not in fellowship, if, God forbid, they hate one another, then it doesn’t really matter. As chapter 2, verse 9 tells us, “Whoever says, ‘I am in the light,’ while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness.”

In verse 4 here in chapter 1, John told his readers that he was writing to them about “these things,” the basic Christian message that Christ is risen and fellowship in him, “so that our joy may be complete.” There it is. In order to have fellowship we must be united in our faith in the risen savior, but if that fellowship isn’t really there, or is broken in some way, then something is not quite complete. It’s not the full joy God wants for His people.

This past week I interviewed applicants for the secretary position our friend Melissa is leaving as she and her family move to Arkansas. One of those applicants had read our Covenant Affirmations on our web site was quite concerned to ask me doctrinal questions about what our church believes. I thought I answered her questions and demonstrated that we agreed on the basics of Jesus and what the Bible teaches about Him. But later she wrote me an e-mail to say that because of what she perceived as doctrinal differences she was withdrawing her application.

I appreciated that applicant’s effort to be discerning and honest, but I also feel like what happened highlights exactly the sort of thing John was concerned about in the Christian community of his time. If people who name the name of Jesus and share a common faith that He rose from the dead to save us cannot love each other enough to work together, then something is incomplete, something is broken. There’s still a lot of darkness.

To address that incompleteness, that failure of fellowship, John goes back to spiritual basics in verse 5, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” In John’s Gospel, chapter 8 verse 12, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” The whole Gospel in many ways is about the contrast between the light of God which came into the world through Jesus and the darkness which is in constant conflict with it.

Fellowship is part of the struggle between light and darkness. Since God is light, since Jesus the Son of God is light, verse 6 tells us, “If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true.” As I preached on Ash Wednesday, the first basic pole of spiritual life is vertical. We need to be in fellowship, in relationship with God through Jesus. But there’s a second dimension, a horizontal relationship with one another. And if that one’s missing, says John, the other one with God was never quite true, not quite complete to start with.

So verse 7 goes on, “but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” It’s all tied up together. Our relationship with Jesus, our forgiveness and cleansing from sin, is tied in and connected to our relationship, our fellowship with each other. That’s because, as Jesus made so clear in the Sermon on the Mount, the sins we need forgiven are so often sins against other people. The light that Jesus sheds on us reveals it.

We recently bought my wife a new desk lamp. She’s been having trouble reading and thought she needed new glasses. But she came home from the eye doctor with the news that she has the beginning of cataracts that are not yet far enough along to be removed. So for right now a change in glasses wouldn’t help her much. Instead the doctor suggested a brighter, higher Kelvin light, a whiter, “daylight” lamp. Her new lamp shines a 6000K beam on her books or artwork.

Beth’s new lamp helps because her cataracts cast a yellowish tinge on everything and diminish contrast between black letters on the white background of most books. “Cooler,” brighter light increases the contrast and helps her make out the letters. What John says about “walking in the light” is that God’s light creates a huge contrast between accepting the “word of life,” which means fellowship with Jesus, and our failures to be in fellowship with each other.

Our sin, our dislike, even hatred for each other, dims our perception of spiritual things. And we all suffer from it. Cataracts are typically a problem of those who are older, but John reminds us that sin is a problem for us all, even when we know Jesus. Verse 10 says, “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” If we really are walking in the light, then that light is going to show us plainly that John is right, that we are not always in proper fellowship with each other nor with God.

Fortunately, like that lamp for my wife’s cataracts helped her see a book better, there is an answer for the dimness of our spiritual sight, for our failure to truly love one another. Verse 9 goes on, “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” It’s only hiding your sin, claiming not to have any, that keeps you in the dark. It would be like Beth pretending she can see perfectly well when all the while she’s struggling to read the paper or do a crossword puzzle. She needed to go the ophthalmologist, explain her problem and follow his advice. You and I need to be honest enough to explain our failures to God and receive His solution.

Another effect of intense light is that it can cause lettering to fade. I recently dug out an old receipt from Bi-Mart for a car battery. It had been printed on cheap thermal paper. It sat on the console of my car for several weeks before I put it away. When I got it out I could see the Bi-Mart watermark on the back, but the front was completely blank. The lettering and numbers had completely evaporated from exposure to the sun. That’s what the light of Easter, the light of Christ, can do for our sins when we bring them out, when we confess them.

There is this this difference, though. Even if your receipt fades, if you charged that purchase to a credit card, you still owe the money, you still have the debt. But when the light of Christ “cleanses us from all unrighteousness,” then it’s really gone, actually erased. God is not keeping a record of it any longer, nor should we.

In Jesus Christ, God wants to take away the sin that makes it so hard for us to keep on enjoying fellowship with Him and with each other. That’s why in verse 1 of chapter 2, John tells us “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” God wants to free us from the darkness and stain of sins that separate us from each other and separate us from Him.

Yet none of us are there yet. John had to call Christians then, and us now, to “walk in the light.” There’s a lot of darkness. All those different churches and denominations are a constant reminder of that. We are not in complete fellowship with each other yet. Our joy is not yet complete. So in our darkness and sin John wants us to keep going back to the source of light. That’s why verse 1 of chapter 2 presses on to say, “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

Years ago now, I stood up here and started a sermon with a couple of lawyer jokes. Afterward I learned that, just a little, I had hurt the feelings of two young law students in our congregation. It’s a good example of how easily and foolishly we can fail to walk in the light, fail to stay in fellowship with God and with each other. So I’m sorry for those jokes. I apologized to those two friends back then.

I’m also sorry because I know very well that when you need one, a good lawyer is a blessing, a true advocate. The best attorneys are both competent and sympathetic. In all the complications and pain of a sticky legal mess, it’s a wonderful gift to have someone on your side who understands both you and the legal system you need to navigate. That’s exactly the kind of advocate we have in Jesus.

John was absolutely adamant in verses 1-4 about hearing and seeing and touching the risen flesh and blood of Christ. He wanted us to know that Jesus is completely and truly human. The One on our side as we stand before God is totally one of us. He knows what it’s like to be weak, to be tired, to be in pain, to be tempted. He’s felt what it’s like for a friend to betray you or for the system to let you down. He is an Advocate who understands.

At the very same time, John insists on what he wrote at the beginning of his Gospel, that the Word of Life which is Jesus was “with the Father” before He came to us. He is the Father’s Son. He is God. And that means Jesus is not only human with us and sympathetic to us. He is competent to help us. Being God, He is an advocate who can actually do something for us. As verse 7 says, “the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

As we stand in the bright, revealing light of God’s judgment, beyond any color temperature on the Kelvin scale, it’s going to show up every sin, every flaw in you or me. It will display the contrast between that thoughtless joke, that hurtful word, that neglected promise, that refusal to show kindness, and the background of God’s own gentle, unfailing, merciful love. Our sin will be plain to see. In that light we need light beside us, light that helps, that heals, that not only reveals the darkness in us, but drives it away.

The last verse in our text, verse 2, adds to that promise of Jesus as our advocate, “and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but for the sins of the world.” That phrase “atoning sacrifice” is just one word in Greek. It appears only a couple of times in the New Testament. It does not really mean “atoning sacrifice.” It means one of two things, both difficult words in English, “propitiation” or “expiation.” Translating it “atoning sacrifice” is just a way not to have to choose one or the other, but I think we need to.

Here’s the difference. “Propitiation” means appeasing someone who is angry. You bring flowers home to smooth things over when you’ve angered your wife. Maybe I take one of those law students I insulted out for coffee. You propitiate someone with an offering that turns her wrath aside from your sins. Some people see Jesus’ sacrifice propitiating God for us, as a gift that deflects His anger from us.

But “expiation” means an offering or act that actually takes away sin. If you broke your wife’s favorite vase, you don’t just bring home flowers, you bring home a new vase exactly like the old one. You don’t just placate her wrath, you remove the cause of it. Jesus’ atoning work, His death and resurrection, doesn’t just turn away God’s wrath. It takes away our sin, removing it, “cleansing us from all sin,” as John said. Jesus will ultimately remove our sins. “He is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

You and I have an Advocate who doesn’t just get us off when we’re really guilty. Our Advocate accomplishes what we can’t possibly do. He actually starts making us truly not guilty. He changes and transforms our lives so that we do really do walk in the light and not in the darkness anymore.

That’s why we often do what verse 9 says in our worship, at every service of Holy Communion. We confess our sins so that God in Jesus can forgive us and cleanse us from them, remove them. I hope that you will also offer up your own personal confessions of sin to God, naming them, and seeking not just forgiveness, but expiation, the removal of that sin so that you will not do it anymore.

In other places in Scripture we are told to confess our sins to each other. Since this text today is so much about fellowship and about walking in our Lord’s light together, I hope and pray that we may also have the courage and trust in each other to confess and seek forgiveness when we have broken that fellowship, when we have failed to walk in the light in regard to a sister or brother in Christ.

John looked back and remembered how the light of Christ dawned on Easter Day as he and the other disciples met Jesus. He recalled how Jesus accepted Thomas’ confession, “My Lord and my God,” how He talked with Peter on the beach and reminded that disciple of his failure, but then forgave and reconciled him in love. That’s the light of Christ in which you and I are invited to walk in this Easter season and always. That’s the light which cleanses us from sin and illumines and brightens our fellowship. Walk in that light.

Amen.