Our community with each other

[AI translation] Let me say at the outset that I would like to focus the light of this word on family life. What we read here, "we have communion with one another", is important in all areas of human life, but especially in the family it is the most urgent, the most necessary requirement and task.Community itself is something without which human life is incomplete. Nothing is sadder than when a person is left alone in old age. Imagine a lonely old woman in a nursing home. There are people around her, but she has no community with any of them, in fact she has no real connection with anyone. No one calls her by her first name, no one calls her "mother". Deep down inside, in her soul, she is completely alone in the world. Oh, how much we all need what our word says: "we have fellowship with one another". Yes, our hearts are made not only for fellowship with God, but also for fellowship with men. And just as man cannot live without God, so man cannot live without other men.
I am also very well aware that we can be burdened by the people around us, and there are moments, occasions, times when man seeks solitude, withdraws, escapes from the crowd into solitude. There are also times when we can't stand to see people. I am always very understanding when I read this at the bottom of an obituary: 'No condolence visits, please. But then there is always someone, maybe just one person, who is needed at the time, whose silent presence is more important than anything else. And if this someone knocks softly at night when you are sitting alone in your room, oh, how good it is, because then we have 'communion with each other'.
Surely we cannot bear life alone. We cannot bear sorrow alone, but we cannot bear joy alone. Pain can be borne if there is someone to bear it in community with. And joy becomes real joy when there is someone to share it with, to enjoy it in community.
Undoubtedly, there are many forms of community in this world: people can be brought into community by work or an idea, or by a community of friends or relatives - but all of them are surpassed by the community of a happy family life. I am touched by what a famous European statesman wrote in his memoirs about his much-loved wife: 'When I came home from work, from the struggle, I found the dearest thing in my home: you! You were the one who dressed my wounds and who gave me new life for the new day...". The relationship between a man and a woman in marriage, in all its physical and spiritual fullness, is so powerful that it has become a symbol of the most sublime communion that exists in the world: the communion that exists between Jesus Christ and His Church. For, according to the Scriptures, the Lord Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church is the Bride. The deepest foundation of all other human community is the family community. Oh, how good - perhaps the best thing in the world - to belong to a family whose members are truly in communion with one another.
So the main question here is: how do we get and keep such real communion with each other? The answer to this question is really clear from our fundamental hymn, 'But if we walk in the light, as He Himself is in the light'. So, if we walk in the light. Not just any light, of course. The apostle is talking about a very special light. It is not a human light, not a light radiating from human knowledge, wisdom, insight, however brilliant it may be. It is a light from above. It is the brightness of God. In fact, let us put it this way: God himself.
For John says in the previous verse, "God is light, and in Him is no darkness." #1Jn1.5. And God has shone out his light on the earth. I read earlier in the lectionary, "The true light had already come into the world, which enlightens all men." #Jn1,9. Jesus is spoken of by the apostle as the light of divine light that illuminates the earth. This idea reveals something of the mystery of Jesus' mysterious, eternal divine person. We know that the very essence of light is that it does not remain in itself, but radiates out. In the eternal light, in the being of God, there is also such a radiance, such a blessed approach, such an unceasing coming towards us, towards men. This radiance of God's being towards us is Jesus Christ. This is the radiant, warming light of God's compassionate love for us: Jesus Christ. He is the light of the world, the true light. And let us accept this to be true. So Jesus is the only true, real light in this world.
For there are other lights, there are other brilliances that try to shine. Such is the dazzling light of gold that is still in this world. How many people have been dazzled by it! Or how many dark areas of life have been illuminated by science, how much it has amazed mankind. The many pleasures of the world shine like a night-light.
So there are other lights in this world, but none of them is the true light. The real, the true, the trustworthy, the life-giving light, the light of life is Jesus. Jesus' words are the light, Jesus' actions are the light, Jesus' sacrifice on the cross is the light, and His resurrection on Easter is the light. The whole person of Jesus is light. For He Himself, as He has walked among us, is the Word made flesh, the eternal Word of God incarnate, the radiance of God's being in us. In him, the fundamental questions of our human life are made clear: who am I, where have I come from, where am I going, what is sin, what is grace, what is eternity, why is there suffering. In him even the darkest reality is illuminated: death.
Indeed: He is the light of the world. He is, as this book testifies, the whole of Scripture, the Old and New Testaments. Have you ever felt that the Word has almost shone into your heart, as if it had exposed you, as if it had shed light on a problem, as if it had illuminated you? This is the light we are talking about here. Look, this is what the apostle says: "He himself is in the light", that is to say, in the light that you may have already felt radiating from the Word. In that light was God Himself. For He Himself is in this light. Yes, in the radiance that sometimes shines in this church, that warms the most difficult life, that penetrates the hardest heart, God's grace, love and care shine on you.
And through this light we are brought into communion with one another, says our founding hymn. "And if we walk in the light..." Do you feel the unheard-of tension in that "but if"? Here is the tension of our very responsibility. This "but if" is like the cornerstone on which the door to our communion with one another opens or closes. "But if we walk in the light ... (then) we have fellowship with one another". So one can also choose not to walk in the light. God has left the decision in this regard to us. He gives us His light, but we can also step out of His circle of light, we can shut ourselves off from His light. And that is what happens. It is also written in the Bible, "men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." #Jn3,19 Yes, a man falls into darkness when he has things in his hands, thoughts in his heart that cannot bear the light.
And when we walk in darkness, we lose one another. It is written of the Egyptians that when the great darkness fell upon them as the ninth plague, 'one could not see the other'. Indeed, this is what happens to us every time we step out of God's light, when spouses, family members walk in dark ways, and when family life, or even business life, or social, international life, is out of the reach of that light.
Yes, what happens is that one cannot see the other. Everyone sees only themselves. And this is the source of all tragedies. That is when the dark clouds of mistrust, envy and suspicion descend between man and man. And we lose each other. The wife loses her husband, the parents their children, the friend her friend, the boss her subordinate, one nation the other nation. It is at such times that people scramble in fright, trying to hold together the tattering, crumbling barrel of life with all the tires they can muster. But that doesn't last long either. It is true that community among people, a true, deep, enriching community of life, cannot be created, forced, bought. Indeed, it can only be received as a gift of grace from God. And God gives it, to all who walk in the light. Thus it is written, "But if we walk in the light, ... we have fellowship with one another". So then let us walk in the light! Let us walk in the light, at least where it is up to us, where we can do it, where we can start immediately: at home, in the family circle, spouses, parents, children, who would be united by family ties, but who feel that these ties are not enough in themselves, are weak, are quickly broken; and here in the church, at least let us walk in the light.
Behold, it is only when we walk in the light that we have true fellowship with one another. Indeed, if our fellowship with one another has grown weak, grey or cold, it is always a sign that we have stepped out of the light in some respect. And how chilly souls can become, how cold it can be in a home, in a heart, how freezing the whole environment can become... Yes, when one is out of the light.
That's why it says: let us walk in the light. It means that the light should shine in, that it should warm you all the way. Let that light shine through our whole life, our exterior, our interior, our relationships with people, every situation, our joy, our sorrow, our pain and sickness, our prosperity and, if there is any, our adversity. Take it all: your sins, your troubles, your sufferings. Everything that hurts, hurts, hurts. Everything that is confusing, incomprehensible, problematic in your life. Bring it into the light of God's Word, into the rays of true light. Walk in the light!
So let us not do what we are wont to do, that is to turn on and off the light of the Word, like the light of a flashlight, when we are looking for something in the darkness. No. Walk in it! As those for whom this light is their life element. Just as air is to the bird, water to the fish, we have this particular light.
Then we will have communion with each other. Then we will find each other again. Then life will be enlightened. Then even the orphan who has no one will not be abandoned, because then the members of the church will be in communion with each other, like one big happy family. Then we ourselves, as sons of light, as banners of God's light, will walk among the people lost in darkness in this world.
So let us try! Most assuredly what God says in this verse is true: "But if we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship one with another..." Amen
Date: 10 September 1961.