Underneath Rome, the ancient capital of the world, and extending for
miles and miles between the River Tiber and the Mediterranean Sea,
are those mysterious passages called the catacombs. How far they go,
whither they lead, at what exact point they terminate, no living man
can tell. From the examinations of the learned who have explored
them for some little distance, at some few points, we know that they
are long and narrow quarries in the rock; underground roads mined
out of the soft volcanic tufa, or stone, on both sides of which the
early Christians, who would not burn, but insisted on burying their
dead, would deposit their departed, and where during these fierce
persecutions they would also assemble for worship. These passages
are but high enough to walk upright through them; they are so narrow
in width that you can touch the sides on either hand, as you grope
along, and they are unutterably silent and dark. If you strain your
eye forward, you see nothing beyond the few feet which the feeble
torch or flickering candle illumines; if you look up, the rock is
there; if you gaze to the right or to the left, you see the shallow
niches, like shelves, one over another, where are strewn the bones
of the dead, crumbling into dust and ashes; and gazing behind you,
you feel a choking sensation at the heart, that if your light should
go out, or your guide should forsake you, you would never find your
way back,--as it is a well-known fact that many too curious in
their researches have disappeared. Such, then, are the catacombs, a
subterranean home of death, a place of impenetrable darkness. And,
my beloved, what better emblem could be found to illustrate what
this world is like, without the Gospel of Jesus Christ, than the
hopeless labyrinths of darkness underneath the City of Rome?
Take the time when our Savior pronounced these words of our text,
or when, as Epiphany suggests to us, those wise men came from the
East, following the star,--what darkness was spread over the earth!
With the exception of the one people, numbering only a few millions
at most, and these sunk away in general apostasy, aside from the
little wax lights of the Jews, there was universal gloom. Around
them, to the farthest limit of the earth, including enlightened and
refined Greece and Rome, the whole world of man lay in heathenism
and idolatry, feeling after God, but knowing Him not, worshiping and
serving creatures rather than the ever-blessed Creator. Think of
Egypt's adoration of bulls, rams, cats, bugs, birds, and crocodiles!
Think of the Assyrian's worship, or of any of those people of
antiquity, rendering to beasts or to heroes and the spirits of dead
men, like the Chinese and Japanese and Hindoos of this day, the
homage due unto the living God! Add to this the attendant miseries,
shameless debaucheries, cruelties, revolting abominations, practiced
all over in the name and belief of honoring God and meriting the
favor of heaven, and it may well be said, the world was darkness,
pitch black darkness. And it is so even to this present day where
Christianity has not yet shed its redeeming light. It is so with
every human soul; the darkness of ignorance, of sin, of misery is
upon it. The man whose understanding has not yet been enlightened by
the beams of spiritual truth is just like a tourist groping along,
and stumbling among, the bones and dust of the catacombs. He knows
not what he is living for, as little as the underground passenger
knows whither he is going. Whenever misfortune and sorrow comes,
there is none to turn to for consolation.
Whenever conscience is troubled and agitated with a sense of its
guilt, and there are times when the spectral hand of conscience,
like in the case of King Belshazzar, writes bitter things against
them, there is no remedy or peace. When death comes, it is all
gloom, spiritual night, a prison-house, a catacomb.
All our knowledge, sense, and sight
Lie in deepest darkness shrouded,
Till God's brightness breaks our night
By the beams of truth unclouded.
And that is the lesson of this season, which means manifestation,
that is the message of Christ to the world of man and to each soul.
He is the Light. As God at the beginning of the world, when it was
a huge mass of confused matter, wrapped in unpenetrable darkness,
spake the word: "Let there be light," and there was light, so,
when humanity at the beginning of these ---- years was spiritual
darkness, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and men saw
His glory, the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth.
Addressing ourselves to our text, let us _I. trace some points of
resemblance between Christ and light_; _II. note the conduct which
becomes us toward this Light_.
The purest and most untarnishable thing in this world is light. Snow
is pure, so is ice, water, and air, but each of these will admit of
defilement, may be marred and polluted. It is not so with light.
Man's hand cannot soil it. No corruption can infest or cleave to
it. Nothing can defile its rays or attach pollution to its beams.
And such is Christ. All creatures have shown themselves liable to
sin and moral taint, but Christ passed through the world of sin
as a sunbeam through a house of filth and disease, and came forth
as pure and blessed as He sprang from God Himself. He took on Him
sin's form, that He might endure sin's due, but sin's stain He never
knew. In Bethlehem's manger, He was the holy Child. He lived a human
life, oppressed with all its cares and temptations, grew up among
its corrupt children, suffered its coarseness, its rebuffs, and its
villainies, but with all this He did no sin, neither was guile found
in His mouth. He was the spotless Lamb of God, pure; for He was the
Light.
Again, light is as bright as it is pure. Things are bright in
proportion as they are full of light. The day is bright when no
clouds shut out the sun. The scenery is bright when illumined by
the greatest number of rays. The hope is bright when it is freest
from gloomy forebodings and fullest of the light of promise. And
such is Christ. He is brightness, "the brightness of the Father's
glory," and His office is to dispense brightness. That is the
brightest time in the soul when there is most of Christ in it.
That is the brightest page on which most of Christ is found. That
is the brightest sermon in which most of Christ is heard. That is
the brightest life in which most of Christ is seen. That is the
brightest world in which Christ is most fully received; and that
heart, that home, that church is but confusion and darkness where
Christ is not.
Light, likewise, is free. It comes without cost, and it comes
everywhere. No poverty is so great as to debar from its blessing,
nor is there an open crevice, a nook or corner in all this wide
world into which it is unwilling to enter, or where it fails to
throw its heavenlike smiles. The halls of the great and the huts of
the humble does it gild alike, and that without money and without
price. As related, it is free, and so is Christ. The command is: "Go
ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature."
There is no place nor spot where its beams are not to be diffused,
no heart into which it does not struggle for entrance. To the poor
as well as to the rich, to Jews as well as to Gentiles is Christ
offered equally freely, and on the same terms of free grace to
each and all willing to accept Him. He is the true Light, ready to
lighten every man that cometh into the world.
Another quality that pertains to the nature of light is that it
is revealing. Darkness obscures. Where it is not light, a pit may
gape at our feet, a murderer may be waiting in our path, a dagger
aimed at our heart; we do not see and know, our vision is held. It
requires light to perceive these things. And so in the spiritual
world, Christ is the great Revealer. By Him we come to know God and
our true selves. By Him we learn who and where we are, what our
needs are, and how to relieve them. One of the hardest things in
the world is to make people believe that they are guilty and lost
beings. The reason is, they are in the dark. They need the light
to show them themselves. And that light is Christ. Only let a man
examine himself in the light of Christ's life and teaching, and it
will not be long until he sees that self of his to be a mere mass
of guilt, and things appearing quite differently in this world of
imperfection and sin.
And to mention the final feature, light is life-giving. Without
light the world is dead. Where the sun rarely shines, or not at all,
there is barrenness, dreariness, perpetual winter, desolation. It
is the warming light of spring that starts the dormant germs, that
swells the buds, and clothes the vineyards, the field, and the woods
with vegetation, fragrance, and plenty. So with the spiritual Light.
Where Christ is not, life is not, there is spiritual barrenness,
winter upon the soul. But when His beams shine in upon the soul, the
seeds of virtue put forth, the tree of faith lifts up its fragrant
bloom, and the fruits and flowers of love and grace spring and bud.
Thus, by a few comparisons with the material, natural light, have
we sought to explain in what sense Christ is called, or rather calls
Himself, the Light.
Let us inquire how we ought to conduct ourselves toward Him. First
of all, if you would enjoy the blessings of this Light, you must
receive the Light; the outward illumination must be followed by a
corresponding inward one. What good does the light do the man who,
when its morning rays shine into his room, will pull down the shades
and close the shutters and pull the cover of his couch over his
head? It's only the worse for the man. The thing is to receive it,
to throw open the shutters of your heart, and to let its radiant
sunbeams burst into its every corner and crevice. That is what it
is for, and we fail of its purpose and benefit if we fail to so
treat it. What if the incoming rays do show us the dust that lies
upon furniture and floor? Should we therefore dislike it, reject
it, or should we cleanse the furniture and the floor? What if the
spiritual Sun reveals to us our darling sins and ignorances? Should
we therefore avoid it and dislike it? It is extremely sorry to see
the attitude of the most of mankind, how they will cling like bats
and owls to darkness who fly away to some dismal haunts, and there
sit and blink whenever a ray of spiritual sunlight reaches them.
Christ Himself said: "Men love darkness rather than light." Let it
not be so to us. Let us accept and profess it, take its blessed rays
into our souls.
And, again, let us reflect it. The Bible directs us not only to be
radiant and luminous ourselves, but to give light and shining so
as to enlighten others, just like the moon and the planets, who,
borrowing their light from the sun, are directed to do service in
their way and sphere. So, borrowing from the Sun of Righteousness,
we must shine forth, each in his respective sphere. "Let your light
so shine before men," says our Savior, "that they may see your good
works." And be it understood this pertains to every Christian, to
be a lamp and light-dispensing orb. Parents are called to a large
share in this office. Young men and young women in the Sunday-school
partake in the same commission. The officers to be installed this
morning, every man, woman, and child in the church have a large
and responsible share, and charged to let his or her light shine
in carrying light to the souls of others. With this opening of the
new year let us be reminded of our Christian duty. Having seen the
Sun of Righteousness rising over the hilltops of Bethlehem, and
rejoicing in its spiritual splendors, see that the benefits be
of lasting impression. Ask yourselves, at the outset, where its
Sundays will find you. And know they are the rays of brightening and
illumination in sacred thoughts and improvements, the days in which
the divine Word shines forth in its radiancy and the gracious Light
of salvation flashes in its glory; then, how can you be children of
light and yet forsake the assembling of yourselves together where
the light is? How can you thus be light-bearers, according to God's
direction? And so in every particular. Taking on the brightness
of the true Light, may it exhibit itself in your energies and
activities. "No man lighteth a candle and putteth it under a bushel
or under a bed, but on a candlestick, that it may give light to all
that are in the house." Let it be in your houses, and if in the past
year the candle of your faith and devotion has been flickering low,
it's an opportune time to trim the wick afresh and to brighten the
flame.
We have seen that Christ is the true and only Light. Let us believe
in Him and walk in Him, now in this day of Gospel brightness and
salvation,--so that we may become partakers of that still more
stupendous Epiphany, that glorious manifestation, when the Son of
Man shall appear in full splendor of His glory to take us home to
the inheritance of the saints in light. Amen.