Signs: The Light Has Come!


Truth is in the news a lot these days, particularly in politics.  This was the cover of Time magazine last week:


That's a good question.  In these days of "truth hyperbole," "alternative facts," and "fake news," the truth can be hard to find.  Some people don't think the truth matters.  What matters is what we think and how we feel.

We're not the only ones to wrestle with the truth.  People did in Jesus' time too.  In John 9:1:1-14, we read about Jesus healing a man born blind.  The main theme of the story is that Jesus is the light of the world.  He is truth.

The Pharisees struggle with the healing because it occurred on the Sabbath.  In their interpretation of the scripture, healing was work, and work was forbidden on the Sabbath.  When some took the formerly blind man to them, they said that Jesus couldn't have healed him because he was a sinner.  Yet the man argued that Jesus couldn't be a sinner because God used him to heal.

Faced with the incontrovertible logic of the man, they insulted him and threw him out of their meeting.  We resort to insults and name-calling when we can't answer someone's arguments!

In the story, Jesus said he came to the world to bring judgment.  He came to make the blind see and the seeing blind.  We have to dig beyond the surface of this statement to understand it.  In the story, the blind man receives his sight through faith in Christ.  But the Pharisees, who were supposed to have "sight," who were supposed to know God's commands, were blinded by their refusal to admit the facts before them.

We judge ourselves by our responses to Christ.

Jesus doesn't just tell the truth.  He is the truth.  He embodies God's truth in himself, in his thoughts, words, and deeds.  We receive his truth when we put our faith in him, and we reflect his truth, his light, in our thoughts, words, and deeds.


 



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