Monday, October 19
In December of 1952, the city of London was suffering through a bitter cold snap. As Londoners heaped extra coal on their fires to heat their homes, the black smoke mingled with the famous London fog, creating a toxic smog that rendered one of the great cities of the world blind and barely able to breathe for several days. Visibility was so bad, people couldn’t see their own feet when standing up. Public transportation came to a halt, aside from the Underground. Ambulances couldn’t run, because of the low visibility and the stranded vehicles littering the streets. If you needed medical help, you had to walk to a hospital. Walking meant shuffling one’s feet, to keep from running into obstacles. Meanwhile, children, the elderly and those with respiratory issues struggled to breathe. But since the smog made things even colder, people kept burning more coal, making the problem even worse. In the end, the Great London Smog may have killed as many as 12,000 people.
That’s a remarkably apt analogy for how the Bible describes our world. God created a world without sin, without war, hatred, violence, disease or death. Our sin polluted His perfect world. The longer we existed on earth, the more polluted it became. You and I are part of this too. Every time we choose to seek happiness and identity on our own terms, apart from Him, we add to that pollution. We see Him a little less, and we make it harder for others to see Him too. We’re slowly dying, but we just keep on doing the same thing, like those Londoners heaping more coal on their fires.
Into this darkness stepped Jesus, the true light. In John 8:12, He said, “I am the Light of the World. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” That’s one of seven “I am” statements in the Gospel of John, and at the time, it was the most controversial of the seven. People wanted to arrest Him for it. Why? This week we’ll see what made this claim so monumental. We’ll also see what it means for us to make Jesus the light of our world.
When I first heard the story of the Great London Smog, it reminded me of a hymn we used to sing in the church where I grew up and got saved:
The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin
The light of the world is Jesus
Like sunshine at noonday His glory shown in
The light of the world is Jesus
Come to the light. Tis shining for thee.
Sweetly the light has dawned upon me.
Once I was blind, but now I can see.
The light of the world is Jesus.
“Lord Jesus, thank you for bringing light to our dark and dying world. Teach me this week what it means to walk in your light, in your name, amen.”
Senior Pastor
First Baptist Conroe
More from Pastor Jeff at his website: jeffbergerwriting.com
