March 19 - Light Made New

1 John 2:8-11

This passage begins with a bit of deception. We read first, "Yet I'm writing you a new command." I encourage you to go back a verse and start from there. John writes, "Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command, but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard." Then, after that, he says, "Yet I'm writing you a new command."

So why this confusion? What is John talking about when he says that it's an old command but also a new one? Well first of all, let's get the command down. The command he goes on to talk about is loving your brother and sister because you are in the light (of Jesus). So basically his command is to walk in the light by following Jesus' way. Now this was, in a way, not a new command. Jews throughout the ages had always been taught to love each other. But this command was made new in Jesus, and the term "light" was taking on a whole new meaning.

Thinking about the Jesus-followers receiving this letter, I'm sure it was not a shock to them to hear that they needed to love their brothers and sisters. They've heard this all their life. But before, it was a law that they kept out of duty and fear of God. Now, it was out of the outpouring of grace from Jesus' sacrificial love that they loved others. And aren't we to do the same? It's hard for me to say that I feel hatred toward anyone, but I can tell you there are people I don't like, or am jealous of or respond negatively to, and I sometimes mistreat them because of it. And if I am doing this, am I really walking in the light of Jesus? I think not, because I would call that stumbling and if I were fully walking in Jesus' light, I wouldn't be stumbling in any kind of darkness.

We know that as Christians we don't live in darkness. But I think it can be easier than we admit to let our foot slip off the path. And when that happens, thank God we have the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ to renew us. John's words in verse 8 give me such joy and hope: "the darkness is passing and the true light is shining through." They remind me of C.S. Lewis' words in the Chronicles of Narnia The Last Battle. At the end, as darkness fades from the world and eternity reigns, he says, "The term is over; the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning." And as we draw closer to Jesus' eternal light, we are reassured that this life is but a dream, that the darkness is passing, and that the true light of eternity with our Lord will soon shine through.