John 1:5

John 1:5

Light and darkness. Day and night. Left or right. Black or white. The polar opposites of light and dark has always been a reoccurring theme in how mankind understands the world about him. Typically, as seen in the Star Wars epic; light is good, and dark is bad. They are set a great distance from each other in mans logic. Well, after all; when do most crimes occur? In the darkness of night. When does a person rise and greet the world and go about their daily business? In the day. We warn our children not to go into the dark for danger lurks at every corner. At death, and sometimes in spoofs and parodies, we encourage the soul to go “into the light”.
So many stories have come about from our dichotomy of light versus dark. As mentioned, Star Wars. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. Light, and dark. We like our labels. We like telling which jar should go on which self. Hell, human history has even based the color of one skin to tell the difference if they are “good or bad”. Chalk on up for humanity.

I tend not to be a morning person. I really am not the type of person to jump up and open the curtains and greet the morning sun. Because honestly, after eight hours of darkness, the light kind of burns

I could go on light and dark differences, but I think you get the point.

However, in John’s Gospel, John does not have the notions which we do on the matter.

Light and darkness transcends even written human history. The very early creation story recalls it as one of the first acts of God by differentiating day and night. However; yet again, not with the same understanding as we tend to have it.

John begins his Gospel with this beautiful prologue about the incarnation of Jesus being the “word made flesh”. In this prologue, Jesus is described as the “true light” which comes from God. As Simeon prophesized, “a light to enlighten the nations”.

Even though we see that this light has come down from the Cosmos into our world. We still see darkness. Better yet, we still live in darkness. The times of our recessing economy, the war in the middle east where men use women and children as shields in battle. Our world and our lives constantly change. And we look in a mirror to see a reflection of what we really look like as a human race, and hope the mirror is cracked.

Darkness still lives among us. But, there I go again, making distinctions.

What is light anyway? We use it to our advantage. We grow our food by it. Cook by it. Read, study, work by it. It’s a rather large necessity. What about the “true light” which John speaks of?

John’s Prologue parallels the creation story in Genesis. Let’s go back there and take a look. Not long after God created light, God created man. And though man lived with the day and night which God created, God’s light was always there. Then humanity fell from Eden, thus darkening our minds and separating humanity from God’s love. And this is the state of the world we see today.

Back to John.

Jesus comes into a dark world. The world around us. Where sin and separation prevail. Here; light and dark truly meet for the first time. The text says that the “darkness did not overcome it”. Sounds hopeful, right? Well, actually the Greek reads “darkness did not comprehend it”. Big difference.

But, it sounds about right.

How often do we not comprehend the light? The choices we make, the things we do, which aren’t very enlightening or light-full. We get in these messy situations were our internal light bulb clicks in after the fact and we think, “oh, yeah, duh”. Even Paul, maybe with or with out the help of psychology, made the amazing observation in Romans that we do the things we don’t want to do, and don’t do the things we should.

But there I go again, duality at its best. Light, and darkness.

You see. If we didn’t live in darkness, we would be ignorant of what the light is. If we lived in only the light, we would be ignorant of the darkness that lies in our world.

I think referring to light and darkness as “states of light or darkness” at this point would be more appropriate.

Imagine with me a sunrise. Perhaps in an open area such as a desert or a meadow. In that moment the night is put away by the sun and darkness is gone. All good, right? Well, unless you happen to be invisible, in the light, we still cast shadows. Shadows which follow us where ever we go. And ironically, those shadows cease to exist when darkness returns.

Christ is the true light from God which this world has had a difficult time understanding. Our broken and darkened world cannot comprehend that light can enter. That it already has. That light does its purpose. You can’t see in the dark. But when there is light, you can understand better which you see. I don’t think it’s the darkness understanding light which should be our concern. But those of in the light ought also make sure we understand our darkness from which we came. Then, will we be able make our shadow imitate us as we do good with the light which has incarnated itself into our world.

In Christ, the light and the darkness are reconciled and can co-exist together. To God (as spoken by the Psalms), there is no difference.