“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” John 1:4
I write this on the last day of 2021 as the Omicron variant spreads rapidly worldwide and in our community. We are hearing reports that this new variant is displacing the Delta variant and is far less lethal. We hope that this displacement by a less virulent variant brings about an end to this wretched pandemic.
Years ago, when visiting northern Ontario, I took a tour of a former underground mine. At one point the tour guide asked the small group of tourists if we wanted to see how dark it was down there. With our agreement, she turned out the light. It was a darkness I had never experienced before. It could be easy to feel overwhelmed by the darkness rather than to recall that the light displaces darkness. And to hope our guide's light still worked...
John’s Gospel begins with a chapter full of complex theological and philosophical concepts where he introduces themes that flow through the entire Bible: the divinity of Jesus the Messiah, the Holy Trinity, the power of the light over darkness, the Incarnation and the prophetic voice of John the Baptist. These themes are fundamental to our understanding of Jesus as fully human, Jesus as fully God, Jesus as a Jew, Jesus as Redeemer, Jesus as Mediator and Jesus as the one who ushers in the Holy Spirit as gift for all people. John uses powerful images from the creation story of Genesis where the Holy Spirit hovered over all of creation displacing chaos with order.
It can seem to us today that the Church has descended back into chaos. As if someone turned out the light and we are in a dark cave. Yet, the central truth of Christianity is that of Emmanuel, God is with us. Do we abandon the idea of the beauty of nature when we confront the violence of a tsunami or an earthquake? Surely not. Do we abandon the central truth of Christianity when we navigate times of darkness? I hope not, for all the law and the prophets remind us of the reality of darkness but to fear not for God is with us and the light displaces the darkness.
Don’t let the dualistic nature of the language of light and darkness fool you. A Christian understanding of light and darkness is not an attempt to lure us into a naïve, simplistic, moralism of right and wrong, good and evil, but to have the humble courage to know Christ, the light of the world, in ALL situations as our friend, companion and saviour.
I hope you don’t hear this as a call to naïveté or a call to ignore the reality of human sin in which we are all embroiled. That is the false hope of idealism, which is definitively NOT the message John introduced in the opening chapter of the Gospel he wrote. Not at all.
John knows the human potential to live in a dark cave. But John knows who can turn the light back on, even when the darkness seems overwhelming. I knew the tour guide could turn the light back on and help us find our way out. John knows that Jesus has the light which illuminates the way of the human condition through darkness. This is why John, like the Psalmist today can proclaim, “O sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation form day to day.” -Psalm 96:1
No comments:
Post a Comment