I love these days in May and June because they get longer and longer. It is good for us to have more daylight and hopefully more sunlight but sadly we can be disappointed about the sun when there are so many cloudy days. You don’t have to suffer from the medical condition SAD, Seasonally Affected Disorder, to admit to getting a little depressed when the sun does not shine. The shadowy days seem to cast a shadow into our hearts; how different the days when the sky is blue and the sun seems to smile. There is a parallel with our walk with God. God is light and we are called to walk in the light but often we can feel we are in shadow, clouds obscure his brightness; perhaps for some it is a matter of still being in complete darkness the sun of God ‘s love has still to dawn in their lives.

This is a good point to pause and each ask ourselves: how much light do we enjoy from God? Is he near us? and are we glad he is near us, or afraid? Do we sense (what the hymn calls) ‘the sunshine of his love’? Or are there clouds in the way? Things that we don’t want God to see? Or are you in fact in the dark about God? Yes, you’re in church today, going through the motions of worship, singing praying listening but it does not make sense. You know that you have God-talk but not God walk; you realise that you are as Paul says to the Ephesians ‘without God and without hope’? Let no-one despair, the reason Jesus came was that those who follow him should not walk in darkness but should have the light of life.

You will be familiar with Holman Hunt’s famous painting, The Light of the World how Jesus stands outside the closed door of a person’s life. The door is shut and there is no handle on the outside; it has to be opened from inside but to judge from the weeds growing around the door it’s been closed for a long time. Will the person inside open up to Jesus? And even if we have opened the front door to Jesus will we only so to speak bring him into the hall, or the best room? Are our lives like a house with many shuttered windows, many rooms off limits to Jesus Christ where it’s all dark and dirty inside, and we are ashamed to let him in and yet we need him in every part of us?

There is no one here who does not need to keep hearing these words in 1 John 1.5-7 ‘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.’

If we have God talk but not God walk, we are in the dark, we are lying but truly to have fellowship with God is to walk in the light as he is in the light and that gives us two wonderful blessings: one is to have fellowship with each other; the other is to be cleaned from all sin by the blood of Jesus, God’s Son.

When John Wesley said ‘God knows no solitary religion’ what he meant was there are to be no loners in the kingdom of God, what we enjoy in fellowship with God is to be enjoyed in fellowship with each other That is why Trinity Kirk Session AGM report had this final simple plea: to pray and work for the goal of true Christian fellowship where our hearts are open to God in Christ and to one another. Can we say we have that quality of fellowship? Should we be satisfied with anything less?

It is like that vision for Ireland where someone saw in a dream the island of Ireland covered in flagpoles with different groups around each pole, their backs to each other, the flags representing different churches and parties. Somewhere in the middle was the cross of Christ but small and obscured by the flag poles. Gradually people began to haul their flags down and to turn to join each other at the foot of the cross. The flag poles grew smaller and the cross grew larger. Human beings have always wanted to obscure the cross and assert their own ‘flag’ whether it is pride in a country or a church or even just themselves. The simple truth is while we fly these flags we deny Christ crucified and we are divided from each other. But where Christians gather at the foot of the cross with falgs lowered there is great hope because what the cross says to all of us is that we cannot find God by ourselves and we cannot say that we are good enough for a holy God and we cannot say that one is better than another; what the cross says is that God loves us, his Son Jesus died for us and the blood of his sacrifice does make us clean. How it makes us clean, there is not time to explain but believe me personally when I say with countless Christians that we find peace with God and forgiveness from God because of the cross, because we trust in Christ crucified. and that is never something to congratulate ourselves for and to think ourselves better than others and superior to others but it is the very basis for fellowship with God and with each other.

And as John goes on, (vv 8-9) we see the contrast again: ‘If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’

What darkness comes from claiming that we are all right and the other person is all wrong! What deception in claiming to have no sin, or that it does not matter! The difference that the death of Jesus makes is that it brings us forgiveness for all sin. Through that forgiveness we come into a relationship with God where we may walk in the light, forgiven, set free and in true fellowship with each other.

How do we do that? We confess our sins. We open up the door and the windows of the house of our lives. to the searching, saving light of Christ. We stop pretending we are all right, that we have things under control, that we have no sin, or nothing that could not be swept under the carpet. We say to God that our lives are in a mess and that we have offended him and we have no reason to be forgiven except that his love is such that Christ died for us.

And that is the heart of the light of God; God’s light is focused through the cross; As in Revelation 21.23 in the heavenly city ‘the Lamb is it’s light’. Who God truly is and how he regards us is focused in his Son who died for us as the perfect sacrifice to take away our sin. Other religions and philosophies may speak plausibly about the light; we may feel even dazzled by claims of ‘spirituality’ but the light of Christ is a light that both shows up the reality of our sin and also deals with that sin because the light is his glory and not ours nor any human system’s

I invite you, I call you if you are serious about God to walk in the light. Allow Jesus to come in and close no door against him: he will correct us and that can be uncomfortable but he will not condemn, he will not reject and in the light of his love and acceptance we may reflect him to others. How do we do that? Let me close with some examples: if we grumble and gripe, that is darkness, a true ‘gloom’ if we give genuine praise and appreciation that is light; if we criticise someone behind their back, that is darkness but if we confront them in private about their fault that, though costly to you and them, is light; if we grasp at and demand to have more and more, that’s darkness but if we give away gladly without needing thanks and attention, that’s light. If we are negative and cynical, that is darkness - hope and joy bring light; If we are obsessed by the failings of others, or burdened by our own faults, either way that is darkness, but if we rest humbly in Christ’s forgiveness that’s light. And if every day this summer should be cloudy and grey let’s celebrate that the light of the love of Jesus is shining.

GtG 118 Lord, the light of your love

v 2 Lord I come to your awesome presence from the shadows into your radiance. By your blood I may enter your brightness: search me, try me, consume all my darkness, shine on me, shine on me ...

v 3 As we gaze on your kingly brightness so our faces display your likeness, ever changing from glory to glory, mirrored here may our lives tell your story, shine on me, shine on me

Shine, Jesus shine, fill this land with the Father's glory, Blaze Spirit blaze, set our hearts on fire. Flow, river, flow, flood the nations with grace and mercy. Send forth your word, Lord and let there be light!

The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Isaiah 60:19.