Scripture: John 1:1-5, 14
So I come to the gospel of John, having given sermons the last three weeks on the Christmas story as it appears (or doesn’t appear) in the gospels of Mark and Matthew and Luke. It’s appropriate that John come last, I think. What the author of this gospel offers us is not so much a story of the birth of Jesus but a reflection on the birth of Jesus, a theology of the birth of Jesus, or if that sounds too off-putting, it could also be seen as a poem about the birth of Jesus. So besides the fact that this gospel was written last and the fact that it is arranged as the last in order of the four gospels as they appear in the Bible, it’s also appropriate that it come last in this series of sermons because I think of it as John’s attempt to sort of sum up what all the stories are about.
He does it right away and he does it in a few well chosen words. But we read them best if we read them as open-ended, not a summary in the sense of some neat conclusion that presents itself as the truth about things, signed, sealed, and delivered, definitive interpretation, that’s that, no need to think any more. We read them best if we read them as John’s way of beginning to unwrap this gift that is Jesus of Nazareth, known to his followers as the Christ, and so he leaves us with the task of continuing to unwrap that gift ourselves, each of us in our own way. So, as is the case with any rich passage from the Bible, it doesn’t present us with a single message but can open out in many directions.
For me the core of what John has to say comes in verses 4 and 5: “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” Here’s another translation of those verses by Eugene Peterson (sometimes hearing different versions gives us a different slant or helps us to hear more freshly): “What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.”
There are certainly other words and phrases that are worth thinking about in this passage: The Word and God’s Spirit of creation and the Word made flesh and dwelling among us, that word being the spirit of life itself and of creation embodied in Jesus, and glory and grace and truth. Lots of things in those few verses to reflect on. But the words about darkness and light always touch me, always speak to me in some way, and they did again this year. You know in the case of Mark and Matthew and Luke I found my thoughts going off in some somewhat unexpected directions as I found myself drawn to reflect on some things that were not the most familiar, or might not have been thought to be the most central part of those readings. In this case I have been drawn back to what I have always thought was the heart of this passage, what has always been the heart of it for me: What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not put it out.” The darkness…and the light.
Some thoughts these verses brought up for me this year are familiar; they’re not new for me. It’s just that I haven’t found a way to put them to rest. These thoughts are probably familiar to you too. The idea that darkness is sinister and is connected to things we want to avoid if we can—gloom and doom and the forces of evil—and that lightness is good and is connected to things we desire—wisdom, enlightenment, hope, virtue—that lightness, the light, is even Godly—all of this sometimes translates poorly, if you know what I mean. I can’t help but think that racial stereotypes and many kinds of racial attitudes that we would be much better off without are consciously and unconsciously suggested, fed, and reinforced by this all too easy and seemingly natural identification of dark with bad and light with good.
Of course we know that when we speak this way and use these metaphors of darkness and light we don’t really mean that to apply to the skin color of human beings. We’re speaking spiritually and symbolically here; nothing to do with how we value or see other human beings. Still we know that those attitudes human beings have toward each other based on skin color with lighter skin color being presumed better in some way—we know those attitudes exist and they have often been found even within communities of color. And so the language we use that might support or reflect such attitudes troubles me. I am not willing to give up using the language of light and dark. It’s part of the language of faith and it is a kind of language we have come to use to try to express things we feel and believe that are difficult to express directly and that language can be beautiful and expressive and helpful. I’m not willing to give it up. But it troubles me for the reasons I just said. And those are the kinds of thoughts I just haven’t been able to put to rest and don’t expect I ever will.
But one specific thing it means to me is that I am tired of seeing white baby Jesuses, white grown up Jesuses too for that matter. It is time that our images of Jesus portray him as a person of color. For one thing, I’m pretty sure it would be more accurate. I’m no expert in such things but most people seem to think Jesus would have had something of a dark complexion, in any case not the Scandinavian or Aryan complexion he is so often portrayed as having in European art. I understand historical accuracy is difficult and is not the only issue. I understand when different cultures portray Jesus as one of them. I understand Japanese Jesuses and Mexican Jesuses and Nigerian Jesuses. But I am less and less willing to accommodate white Jesuses and until I can be convinced that we have all been able to put this matter to rest, where there is not even the remotest possibility that the way we use the terms light and dark affect, subconsciously or otherwise, how people see each other and value each other, and how they see themselves and value themselves, I think there needs to be a moratorium on white Jesuses. I think it is important to say that the light of the world was a person of color.
I also have to say that I believe the images of darkness and light carry more complex meanings than just the association of darkness with bad and light with good. It’s not just a matter of the racial and ethnic overtones that may be involved. It’s also a question of whether we are able to embrace, and know that God embraces, those parts of ourselves that are not the confident, cheerful, optimistic, know-where-I’m-going, let-my-little-light-shine parts. It’s a question of whether we are able to embrace, and know that God embraces, those parts of ourselves that are uncertain, maybe even feeling lost, the parts that are grieving or sad or depressed, the parts of ourselves or the times in our lives when joy is just not right there at hand and laughter does not come so easily or so heartily and when the future is not filled with promise, the parts of our lives that we might associate with darkness.
We know of course what Isaiah meant when he wrote “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.” When people are dwelling in this land of metaphorical darkness, of course they wish for light to come, and of course we wish it for them; it would be unfeeling to do otherwise. But again I say it may be a little more complicated than that. Sometimes that darkness, whatever darkness may stand for in our lives, sometimes darkness is where we need to be at least for a time, or in some part of our spirits…because sometimes grief, for instance, is an appropriate place to be whether we’re grieving over a personal loss or whether it’s some part of our world that calls us to grieving. Sometimes darkness is where we need to be, at least for a time or in some part of our spirits…because there is some learning to be had or because there is something in the process of coming to life within us that needs a gestation time. Sometimes—well actually pretty much all the time—the light that shines in the darkness needs the darkness in us to be seen and so we can understand the darkness as a place where dreams are vivid and wonder is palpable and where God is most real.
In any case, darkness, again whatever that may stand for in our lives, is not necessarily something to be avoided at all costs and gotten rid of as quickly as possible. There is a tendency, maybe, in human beings to want to do that. There is certainly a tendency in our culture to want to teach us that—to pretend that happiness and progress are the only things worth striving for and to want to hide or avoid or repress anything that might get in the way. But we do so at the peril of our full humanity. I believe we need to read the scriptural passages about darkness and light, even the one from John that stands near the heart of the message of Christmas, I believe we need to read such passages carefully, by which I mean not just thoughtfully but with care, with compassion. I believe the darkness is sometimes in some ways necessary in our lives. I believe the darkness is not something to be ashamed of, not something to be gotten over as quickly as possible and that we judge ourselves or others for if we are not able to put it behind or aside in not much more than a jiffy. I believe the darkness is sometimes and in some ways to be embraced even as we continue to need and seek a source of light. We need to read these words of scripture carefully.
Still, having said all of that, these words speak truth for me. “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” “What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.” As I read these words this week, I was reminded of a poem I first ran across many years ago. It’s by a man named David Morton, whom I don’t know, and it’s called “A Conference in December”. It begins:
We are too early here,
Gentlemen,
At this mahogany table,
Shining with a hard light
That cannot hold the encroaching darkness off,
From men arrogant in fear,
Men speaking out of pride or danger.
The Birth of one world,
Gentlemen,
You will remember, in an earlier year,
Was otherwise:
There was a different shining,
A different light,
A pinpoint in the Palestinian night,
Holding the dark at bay in a stable,
From a manger…
The poem goes on, but it was that phrase “holding the dark at bay” that caused me to think of this poem in connection with this morning’s scripture. There is the image he begins with of a hard light that “cannot hold the encroaching darkness off” and then “a different light, a pinpoint in the Palestinian night, holding the dark at bay.” I do feel that way sometimes, more than sometimes, as though there are forces in my life bent on doing me harm, forces in the life of the world bent on doing us harm, forces capable of encroaching on our peace, our happiness, our well being, whatever it may be that we value or that lends value to our living.
My sense is that there are many people who feel this. There is a kind of darkness that encroaches, that threatens, and we surely do need a light to hold on to that is capable of holding the encroaching darkness off. We do need a faith that will sustain us not in an endless pursuit of upbeat attitudes and can-do optimism but that can hold the darkness at bay, whether it comes in the form of disease or disaster, terrors without or terrors within. It is not a matter of avoiding the darkness, denying or repressing it. It is a matter of not letting it overwhelm us. It is a matter of not giving in to it. It is a matter of not giving ourselves over to it. For some of us that pinpoint in the Palestinian night does hold the darkness at bay, for the darkness cannot overcome it.
That is a faith that I pray for, for myself and others this Christmas. I pray for it because often that is the best we can do, hold the darkness at bay. Human life, truly human life, seems sometimes to be under siege these days, mostly from humans themselves. Perhaps that pinpoint in the Palestinian night can help us recover our humanity. I hope so. I pray for it. But there is something beyond that to pray for too, something I mean beyond holding the darkness at bay. Because to use that language makes it sound like what is most real and most powerful in our psyches and spirits is that form of darkness that encroaches, and all we can do is hold it at bay. But there is also the hope, the prayer that what becomes most real for us is not the darkness which needs to be held at bay but the Light itself, a Life-Light that blazes out of the darkness and that the darkness cannot overcome nor hold at bay. I pray for the Light to become more real than the darkness. For most of us non-saints that is a more distant hope, but one very much worth our prayers and our seeking. Amen.
Jim Bundy
December 23, 2007