When Death Distracts Us

[HKHaugan]

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind (John 1:4 NIV).”

 

In a time when death seems to populate the media and we are bereft in our attempt to explain its preemptive suffering the good news that Jesus is ‘The Life’ is the message we need to bring to a distraught world.  It is also the message we need to reaffirm in our own consciousness.  The recent tragedy in Norway, the passing of an evangelical titan, John Stott, the dying friends and relatives amongst us, growing unrest and war in many countries and the rise of worldwide terrorism, all of this is part of the tribulation Jesus foretold.  “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world (John 16:33 KJV).”

 

He who has overcome the world is present in the hearts of believers.  He is present in the world, in the broad rule of space and in the spiritual realm out of which this world came.  He is the life He came to give each of us in the here and now.  Further it would be in abundance meaning eternal life right now.  Life as Jesus lived on earth was in a human body just like ours but His life was spiritual as well as physical.  It was His spiritual life that predated and created the universe.  When Jesus said He came to give us life it was His life before there was physical birth.  We were designed to receive His life, to live His life, to share His life and to know His life in an eternal relationship after the death of our physical body.  Jesus died but the Holy Spirit raised Him.  He went through this in faith to give us the key to Him and eternity.  His Resurrection is the promise, His personal guarantee, that all who believe in Him have that life by faith. 

 

What John is telling us in the above passage is that when we have faith and give our mind to belief trusting Him personally in our hearts, it is like turning on a light so you can see in the dark.  Jesus is the light that makes sense intellectually in the mind.  He takes the thoughts of our hearts and lifts them into light of His mind through the Word He gave us to see not only Him but the world as it really is.  He is the light that goes on when we have a decision to make that demands the choice between good and evil, which He has clearly defined.  He is the light that burns in the midst of our conflicts and suffering.  It shines in the darkness of our sinful self-absorption and greed.   His light brings clarity to what it means to be in relationship with God and one another. 

 

Jesus’ teaching is not only light for the mind it is His presence offering us the loving freedom to consider how we uniquely can think and be like Him as we go moment by moment through the topsy-turvy world of sickness and death.  His life is the light that shows us the narrow path in the midst of a sea of options that the prince of darkness, the devil, is constantly using to distract us from Jesus as Savior and Lord, the King of light. 

 

The devil has a plan.  He is persistently trying to keep us on the train of instant gratification because to consider that Jesus is light is to being eternity into the present, to be concerned only for what we can get in the moment as opposed to whom we can live for in eternity, for the long haul.  His goal is to keep us in the dark, in the evening of doubt and uncertainty relying on our own resources.  His end is to keep us in complete aloneness and fear because that is his nature.  It is the worship of the moment and what we can get in it. 

 

Jesus brings us life and that life is the light that exposes not only the devil’s plan but the devil himself.  It reveals the kind of mind that uses terror to satisfy the moment of personal ideas and conclusions made apart from God and His Word.  It sheds light on the incessant need to be in control, to have one’s own way and to sing the anthem of self, “I Did It My Way.”  Jesus’ light shines when in the context of His parables we gain insights that humble us to see into our hearts but also the hearts of others.  It shines on our political and economic concerns as we watch the struggles of a secular society trying to make decisions that are God’s alone.  It shines when we yield in worship and Jesus speaks to us through the Holy Spirit as we sing, praise Him, share spiritual gifts, pray, hear the Word preached and are conscious of Him.

 

There is so much more but that is why we have each been given His light for our lives.  It is a personal light, and interpersonal light and a light that lights up the world when we realize it is in Jesus that we live and move and have our being.  No wonder Paul declares so triumphantly, “Oh, Death, who's afraid of you now?  It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God! (The Message Bible)”