Darkness and Light, Light and Darkness
When I was young, whilst reassuring me about sleeping in a dark room, my Mother said
‘Don’t worry, there’s nothing in the darkness that is not there in the light’.
In his sermon on the second Sunday after Christmass Fr. David Lawrence-March was unravelling the first few verses of St. John’s Gospel, those lovely, beautiful, poetic, mystic verses starting
‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’
I cannot quote the whole of his most interesting address to us, but will pick out just one piece that struck me as particularly appropriate to my theme for this ‘Page’.
He said that although The Word was made visible to humanity at the Incarnation, The Word had/has always existed, part of the Holy Trinity, and in the darkness of eternity, dark because we cannot see it, the Creator, Breath and Word already WERE/ARE.
No beginning or end --- always.
But, at a particular time and place the Word became flesh, Jesus, and dwelt among us, and it was as if the light was switched on!
There was nothing in the light that had not already been there in the ‘darkness’ but now we could see it.
We call Jesus ‘The Light’, and at a persons Baptism they are charged to ‘Walk in the light of Christ’, and to ‘Shine as a light in the world, to the glory of God the Father’
Again at Christ’s Presentation in the Temple, Simeon proclaimed the infant Jesus to be ‘The Light of the World’.
We keep this Feast on February 2nd, and because of the Church’s tradition of carrying candles to symbolize the Light of Christ, the day is referred to as Candle-mass.
I am writing this at the beginning of another New Year, and pray that we may not be fearful because we cannot see what is before us, for we enter this darkness of unknowing with the Light that is Christ.
There will be nothing in the darkness that would not be there in the light, be it good or bad, happy or sad, but by the Light of Christ we will see it for what it is, and He will give us courage for our journey, companionship on the way, strength to endure and to overcome, and a happy heart to rejoice and give thanks for untold blessings.
He will light our way, perhaps just one footstep at a time --- and that is enough.