This morning, I have a little quiz for you to take…

What do “Smokey the Bear”, “Winnie the Pooh”, and “John the Baptist” have in common?  The answer, of course is … they have the same middle name! Get it?

Smokey THE bear, Winnie THE Pooh, John THE Baptist!

It’s so obvious, and yet we are oblivious to it, until we stop to think about it:.   It’s so obvious.  Samuel Johnson once observed, Don’t be afraid to state the obvious.  It’s what most people have forgotten.

I think that is true … especially when it comes to matters of faith.  There are times – like today – when it is important to state the obvious, because that is what is too easy to forget. 

When Jesus tells us “I am the light of the world”, he is in a way, just stating the obvious.

From the beginning of time when God said “Let there be light”, and the creation unfolded at God’s word; from the moment in time when God came to earth, incarnate in Jesus, and the light overcame the darkness once and for all, since then light and life have gone hand in hand.  It is obvious – you can’t have life without light.

George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company and inventor of rolled film once told his students:

Light makes photography.  Embrace light.  Admire it.  Love it.  But above all, know light.  Know it for all you are worth…

This morning, we would do well to heed that advice, to “know light” for all we are worth.

When it feels as if a certain pall has fallen over the world, we need to pay attention to light –  we need to “know light” -perhaps as we never have known it before.

The filmmaker Sven Nykvist suggests we pay attention to light in all its facets, when he writes:

Light can be gentle, it can be dangerous.  Light can be dreamlike, or bare.  It can be living or dead, misty or clear, hot or dark,  Light can be violet or springlike, light can be falling, it can be sensual, or limited, poisonous, calm or soft.

We need to pay attention, to know light, yet we also need to remember that the value of light is not primarily in the diversity of its properties.  The core value of light is in what it helps us to see, and how it helps us to grow.

The Persian poet Hafiz brings to mind that obvious truth about light, a truth we so often forget – when he writes:

How did the rose

Ever open its heart and give to this world

All of its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of LIGHT against its being,

Otherwise

We all remain too frightened.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus bring the encouragement of light into the world over and over again.  In the very first chapter John tells us Jesus was in the beginning with God, and that “All things came into being through him and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him is life and the life is the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Now, here in the 8^th chapter, John has Jesus saying “Hello, I am the LIGHT of the world. It’s all so obvious, and yet, the Gospel record doesn’t stop there.  Jesus not only claims the title of “light” for himself… he also tells us You are the light of the world, as if to suggest “I brought the light to you so that you could also bring the light of God to the world.”  Now that  may not seem quite so obvious!

You know as well as I do that it is easier to receive the light than it is to shine the light.

It is simpler to follow the light than it is to BE the light.  We know only too well our own limitations, our own shortcomings, the ways we blunder around in the dark and ignore the light.  Leonard Cohen, in his iconic song entitled “Anthem” reminds, us, however that all is not lost for us…

The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be

Ring the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)
That’s how the light gets in

God’s Light gets in at the point of our imperfections.  The light gets in, in our moments of pain or brokenness.  God’s light gets in, in our estrangement from ourselves or from each other.  God’s light gets in, in our loneliness, our heartache, even in our fear.

God’s light gets in through the cracks in our façade of self-sufficiency, the cracks which force us to recognize our need for that light.

Frederick Buechner put it this way:

People are prepared for everything except for the fact that beyond the darkness of their blindness there is a great light.  They are prepared to go on breaking their backs plowing the same old field until the cows come home without seeing, until they stub their toes on it, that there is a treasure buried in that field rich enough to buy Texas.

They are prepared for a God who strikes hard bargains but not for a God who gives as much for an hour’s work as for a full day’s labor.  They are prepared for a mustard-seed kin-dom of God no bigger than the eye of a newt, but not for the great banyan tree it becomes with birds in its branches singing Mozart.

We have forgotten the obvious.  We have forgotten that there is no place and no time we can inhabit where God is not present with us.  We have forgotten there is no horror too great, no hurt too deep, no challenge too high, no fear too consuming, no doubt too strong for God to be present with us within it.  We have forgotten God’s Light is powerful enough to not only get into the cracks of our lives… but to burst forth from them as well!

Cohen’s song goes on…

You can add up the parts, you won’t have the sum

You can strike up the march, there is no drum

Every heart, every heart to love will come

But like a refugee…

[so] ring the bells that still can ring;

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack, a crack in everything…

That’s how the light gets in.

 “Hello,” Jesus said… “I am the Light of the world”…Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.   Whoever follows me – whoever joins with me,

will feel the encouragement of Light against their being…and will finally no longer be afraid.  So be it for us today!  Amen.