Will Vaus

I find it fascinating that every time there is a tragedy of some kind in our world, people are soon gathering at churches or other locations and lighting candles in memory of loved ones who have died. It seems our instinctive response as human beings confronted with so much darkness is to try to let a little bit of light shine through the gloom.   Light and darkness is the subject of 1 John 1:5-7. Listen for God’s word to you…   This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.   John tells us he has a message that he and his community have heard from Christ and that they have to pass on. This message includes at least three important things we need to know about light.  First,

  That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.   In these opening four verses of 1 John the author tells us three important things: about his purpose, about himself, and about Jesus. Let us look first at what John tells us about his purpose in writing….   First, John tells us it is his desire for his readers to have fellowship with them.  The “we” and the “us” in the opening of this letter probably refers to the group of disciples gathered around John the Evangelist in Ephesus. John’s desire is that his