This is the message we have heard from Him...

1 John 1:5-10 NRSV

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. ⁶ If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; ⁷ 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. ⁸ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

What kind of God allows suffering? Is God loving but powerless or perhaps God is all powerful but also spiteful? Or is there some other story to explain our lived reality of anxiety ridden lives of relativism and rejection of God because of the suffering we experience and witness. John is in no doubt about the nature of God that Jesus revealed in His life and teaching. God is light! In Him there is no darkness… The term ‘God is Light’ is explained by John in the prologue to His gospel.

‘1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴ in him was life,^[a] and the life was the light of all people. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. ⁶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸ He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹ The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.^’

Jesus (The Word) is identified as the Redeeming Creator God. This power to create is ‘life’ and ‘light’. God is light; God is life, the source of all life and the force of all that is good. There appears to be another source and force in the world. This is the source of darkness and misery but this force was not and is not strong enough to overcome the light of Jesus and the life He offers all of us.  The true light, which enlightens everyone, is Jesus, His teaching and the offering of Himself for us.

Darkness and human suffering is revealed by John to be simply meeting our needs our own way. You know what I mean. We have a tendency to go about meeting our physical, social, psychological and environmental needs our own way.  This approach to life is universal; we are all caught up in it; the bible refers to it as Sin; darkness; the force that rages against God. It’s hard to argue against meeting our needs our own way as the source of suffering. It’s all around us. Even our attempts at altruism and attempts to make things better seems like adding an ‘Elastoplast to a running sore’. Darkness needs to be overcome with Light. Death has to be overcome with Life; transformation in our life is the evidence that we are disciples of Jesus; that we accept Him as the Creator, Redeeming God who came into the world to bring us life. John is certain about the proof that Jesus is who He claims to be. The proof is that Jesus can transform our lives from darkness into light. John sums it up perfectly…

 ⁹ If we confess our sins (meeting our needs our own way), he who is faithful and just (Jesus) will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (Darkness). ¹⁰ If we say that we have not sinned (meeting our needs our own way), we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (Therefore, the life of suspicion, doubt, anxiety and darkness will continue)

In John 1: 10-13 we read:

¹⁰ He(Jesus) was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹² But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³ who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

This passage reveals who we are created to be ‘children of God’. Today we have an opportunity to recover our true identity and begin celebrating that God is both ‘All Powerful and All Loving’. For this reason we have hope in the new life that Jesus brings and we can begin living lives full of light that will overcome all our darkness and suffering.