Two characteristic ceremonies of this Festival gathered up in
expressive symbols the lessons of a Divine sustenance and of a
Divine Presence, which remained as the great results of the
teaching of the desert, and both of these were treated by Christ
as parables of Himself. Each morning water was brought in a
golden vessel from the Pool of Siloam and poured upon the altar
of sacrifice. That water recalled to the people the supply drawn
from the rock at Meribah, and pointed forward to the spiritual
water which hereafter men should draw "out of the wells of
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344 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
salvation." For in Christ the living rock, the image and the prophecy found their accomplishment; and so "in the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." Then again, every evening there were lighted in one of the courts of the Temple two great lamps which are said to have cast their light over every quarter of the Holy City. These recalled the pillar of fire which had been in old times the sure token of Divine leadership and pointed forward to "the sun of righteousness" which should " arise with healing in his wings." In Christ — the " light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel " — the image and the prophecy found their accomplishment, " and therefore " He " spake again unto " the people, " saying, I am the light of the world : he that folio we th me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life."
2. " I am the light of the world." This is one of those short, pregnant statements of our Lord characteristic of this Gospel, which impress us at once by their brevity, their beauty, and their largeness of meaning. Statements of a similar kind, of equal terseness and force, occur to every one — "I am the good shepherd " ; "I am the resurrection, and the life " ; "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."
Sometimes Jesus gathers His work and nature up in one descriptive word, and offers it, as it were out of a wide-open hand, complete to His disciples. In such a word aU the details of His relation to the soul and to the world are comprehensively included. As the disciple listens and receives it, he feels all his fragmentary and scattered experiences drawing together and rounding into unity. As, having heard it, he carries it forth with him into his life, he finds aU future experiences claiming their places within it, and getting their meaning from it. Such words of Jesus are like spheres of crystal into which the world is gathered, and where the past and future, the small and great, may all be read.
What Divine audacity there is in such sayings ! and how little we can suppose them to be the sayings of a mere teacher or prophet ! They have no parallel in the words of even the greatest teachers. One and aU imply something which the most powerful and enlightened, conscious of their own capacities to communicate
ST. JOHN VIII. 12 345
truth or to do good, would scruple to arrogate to themselves. They might claim respect for the truth they speak, and summon men to attend to it with a voice of authority. But no merely human teacher would dare to make himself the centre of all truth, and the centre of the world.
It was indeed a magnificent word, a stupendous word. It is one of those sayings of our Lord which prove that "never man spake as this Man. It is utterly unaccountable and inexplicable save on one assumption. It either makes us tremble with a shock of surprise, with a feeling of doubt which we wish to crush down as blasphemy, or it brings us to our knees in worship, as before One who is lifted immeasurably above the ordinary limita- tions of humanity. There are only two possible conclusions to which we can come concerning such words as these. They are either the wildest words of audacity and self-deluded egotism that human lips ever uttered, or they are the language of one who was set far above all human criticism and judgment by His real and unmistakable Divinity. Had such a claim as this been made by the greatest teacher, prophet, or apostle of the ancient world, his words and memory would long since have perished in the scorn and disgust which it would have provoked ; and were such a claim advanced by any person in the present day, there would be a universal feeling that mental derangement was at the base of it. No wonder that the men who listened to Him were either filled with indignation or inspired with reverential awe. No wonder that He seemed to them either a blasphemer or the Son of God. There could be no middle course. It was certain that the person who talked in tliis way would either be scorned and hated and crucified by the world or lifted by adoring hearts wholly above the world in love and honour and supremest adoration. And no middle course has ever been possible for long. Men have never continued to reverence Him as a man unless they have learned to worship Him as God. It is difi&cult to trust Him at all unless we trust Him all in all. These words are either so extravagant or so sub- lime, that the Man who spoke them was guilty of a self-conceit unparalleled in human history, or He was higher than the highest human thought can reach and not to be addressed save in the worshipful words of Thomas, " My Lord and my God." We have ever to make oui- choice, and most of us have made it to our