The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
In the beginning was the Word. And so begins the Gospel of John. John was a mystic, and his words look nothing like the preceding three. His Gospel was written at a time when his community was under siege, so it’s easy to see a pretty strong anti-Semitic bent to his writing. Caution number one. As a mystic, he also focuses largely on Jesus-fully-divine, where other Gospels seem to tell a story that tells us more about Jesus-fully-human, like Jesus’ birth narrative in Luke. For me, the concrete thinker, this is caution number two. I need to work really hard to wrap my head around this writing, and sometimes I can only get as far as admitting I believe it, but don’t understand it. My final thought about John comes from when I was preparing for my ordination competency exams. I knew I needed some tricks to better identify scripture. As a result, I came up with the idea that John’s Gospel focuses on three themes – water/baptism, love, and light/dark.
These two cautions and my study device are likely why I focused on this darkness and light passage. It doesn’t touch on any politics, it’s very concrete, and it supports my notion of the themes of John.
If you’re in complete darkness, it’s amazing how little light is needed to make it no longer dark. It might not be enough to make the space bright, but any amount of light, even a tiny match, makes it no longer dark. If you introduce light, any amount, it’s light. The reverse is not true. First of all, you can not introduce dark. Darkness isn’t a concrete thing that exists. Rather, it can only be defined as the absence of light. You can’t introduce darkness or bring a little darkness into an otherwise light space. Darkness only happens when light is removed, or shadowed.
God is the ultimate light. Any amount of God by definition removes the darkness. Jesus, as God-made-man, showed us what God’s darkness-removing presence means on earth. Jesus’ mere presence removed the darkness. When Jesus gathered apostles and disciples, he shared his light with them, and their mere presence removed the darkness. As Jesus disciples, our presence and action can remove some darkness. I’d also argue that all true God-worshippers, whether they call God Yahweh or Allah, they also share God’s light and remove darkness.
Darkness cannot overcome light, even a small match. Even a sole God-follower.
No comments:
Post a Comment