Jesus: Light of the Dark World

"In Him was life, and that life was the light of men; and the light shineth in the darkness, and darkness cannot lay hold of it." John 1:4-5

"Everyone that does evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds shoould be exposed." John 3:20

"The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it that the works thereof are evil." John 7:7

"To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." John 18:37

"For this purpose the Son of God was manifested: that He might destroy the works of the devil." I John 3:8b

The destruction of the enemy and his works begins and ends with the proclamation and revelation of the truth. Jesus was not hated because He lead military uprisings (which He didn't), nor because He merely taught us to love each other (which He also didn't); rather, He was hated because He spoke the truth to those in and of the darkness. The result was like fire and deadwood, or vampires and the sun, or sodium and water: it was not a pleasant mixture.
Jesus, however, was not here to mix pleasantly with all things: he was here to start a fire (Luke 12:49), to break a spell, both in word (His teachings) and in deed (the Cross). Jesus was the Light not just because He is and came from God, who dwells in Light inaccessible, but also because He was the truth and spoke the truth, and the darkness hated Him for it.
We too are called to be such a witness; not a witness to our own ideas or notions, but to the truth: the truth that God has revealed in His word and in Christ. As Christ was the light of the world (John 8:12) so too are we (Matt. 5:14-16). We are called to pierce the darkness with a hated yet unquenchable light, and thus we can expect the same ire but also the same victory. The world loves two things: (1) convenient lies that are easy to forget while they support our congenial apathy towards and complacency in Sin, and (2) uncertainty and doubt as an appropriate hiding place for our pet preferences and opinions. They love these things because they fear what truth and certainty will reveal about themselves and their preferences, viz., that they are weighed and found wanting before the holiness of God.
We are told to sow the word like seeds; what an image to think of the seeds as sparks of flaming light that illuminate the night and burn up the dead and rotting things! We are the light-casters: we bear witness to the truth, and in doing so cast shards of Heaven's light like fire round about. This is the fire that Christ has started and that we continue, until perhaps all the elements of the earth will melt by its fervent heat.

-Jon Vowell