Light and Sight

Jun 1, 2020 | by Pastor Josh Tate | series: Life In His Name


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I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I have a fairly serious sleep walking problem. Over the years I have had many nocturnal adventures like the time I wandered around a horse ranch, destroyed a drop ceiling, went outside and yelled at my neighbor’s house, went into work at a police department, climbed out of a bedroom window, and another time when I injured myself so badly that I was unable to talk for a few days… all while sleeping. Once, in college, I horrified my roommate who woke one night to find me ripping a light fixture out of the ceiling hulk style. I’m the reason why Sarah is such a light sleeper. On too many nights to count she has confronted me, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say a version of me, sleepwalking my way out into the night. I should add that I am not nice or reasonable person when I sleepwalk.

What Sarah has learned over the span of nineteen years of living with a sleepwalker is that the best thing to do when I’m somnambulating is to simply turn on the light. I don’t know if medical books would agree with that bit of advice, but, speaking anecdotally, we have found that it works better than trying to reason with me. One minute I’m stumbling around in a darkened room and under the effect of a darkened mind trying to find the way of out of a mine shaft or some other dream invention, but then Sarah turns on the light and even in my foggy mind I am able to see and understand that I’m in my bedroom not where I had imagined.

This Sunday we will continue our study through the Gospel of John by unpacking verses 6-18 of chapter 1. In light of my history with sleepwalking the pattern of this passage is interesting to me. In the first four verses of this section the word light occurs four times, and then in the second half reference is made to us seeing a couple of things. It’s almost as if when we were lost we were stumbling around a darkened world under the effect of a darkened mind and then when Jesus arrived it was like the lights came on and now we are able to see. As C.S. Lewis once said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

I hope you can listen in as we enjoy God in the midst of His Word by studying John 1:6-18.