No Darkness At All

I am not a big fan of contemporary “worship” music as a whole, but there are some pieces that appeal to me greatly. One of them is “I Want To Walk As A Child Of The Light” by Kathleen Thomerson.

The refrain contains the phrase “In him there is no darkness at all.” This is drawn from the first letter of John:

“Now this is the message that we have heard from him [Jesus] and proclaim to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all” [1 John 1:5].

Having come through more than one period of darkness in my life, some of it externally circumstantial and some of it internal, I take considerable comfort in this idea. When I come to Jesus in prayer during a time of darkness, I am comforted to know that he offers light.  Whether I am at home, at mass, in the adoration chapel, or elsewhere, His light will come, even if it is at the far end of a long tunnel.

I cannot say that about every comforter. Job’s “comforters” were famously harsh and punitive in their approach to him. It is only human for people to wonder about and even inquire as to what someone might have done to draw the darkness enveloping them.

But it is an example of how humans carry some darkness with them, even when they are acting as bearers of light. People are rarely pure in darkness or in light.

But In Jesus There Is No Darkness At All

That there was no darkness in Jesus does not mean he was incapable of anger. His cleansing of the Temple, his scolding of the Pharisees and Scribes, and his remonstrations of various Apostles show that he was capable of what we think of as negative emotions. But his anger was purely righteous, a rare thing in human beings.

There is a passage in C. S. Lewis’ book “Perelandra” where the hero, Ransom, is battling the unman – a demon possessed human – and finds himself reciting lines from an epic poem.  He realizes that he is feeling actual, undiluted righteous anger for the first time in his life.  This realization lends strength and skill to his blows.  This ultimately leads the demoniac to flee from the fight it had earlier welcomed.

The passage illustrates the power of unambiguous feelings and motivations.

Instead of being a rare occasion as it is for ordinary human beings, feelings and motivations unmixed with darkness were the norm for Jesus.

No Darkness Does Not Mean No Regrets, Or No Sternness

Regret is not synonymous with darkness. Looking at Jerusalem, Jesus said:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling!” [Matthew 23:37].

Following these words Jesus prophesies about the fate awaiting Jerusalem, having previously excoriated the scribes and Pharisees and spoken sternly to the crowds and disciples. Light banishes darkness, and it requires no darkness to empower it.

These are not the only examples of Jesus speaking sternly. And his cleansing of the Temple shows that he could also be pure in physical action as well as speech.

Still, asserting that these arguably angry words and actions can be done without darkness requires some explanation, at least.

Anger Without Darkness

I cannot really imagine any kind of anger or angry action coming from me without some darkness mixed in. But I can imagine Jesus having that capability, because I can imagine Jesus having perfect love.

While St. Paul waxes rhapsodic about the properties of love in 1 Corinthians 13, the properties of love are also explored in many ways in many places in scripture. The capacity of love to oppose and even drive out darkness is never far from these descriptions.

So it should be no surprise that the Son of Love can act out of love and without darkness even when being stern.

And this brings me back to an old cliché that I have visited and revisited time after time over the years: the idea we should “love the sinner and hate the sin.”

Love The Sinner And Hate The Sin

In real life I have found more enthusiasm for hating the sin than loving the sinner, both in myself and others. But the cliché expresses in another way how one might be stern without darkness.

The problem is that in reality people tend to end up identifying the sinner with the sin.  They start to hate the sinner (or dislike/disapprove of/be scornful of/etc., which are all the same).

But if someone really loves another, completely and fully without reservation – that is, perfectly – then if the beloved has a besetting sin, it would seem like a disfiguring injury to the one viewing the person with perfect love. Thus, one would find him or herself angry at the thing disfiguring the beloved without being angry with the beloved.

It may be that some of the Saints have achieved perfect love, but I am sure that Jesus did.  This is why He could be angry without darkness.

Life Without Darkness

Scripture is filled with admonitions to live our lives in the light and to move out of darkness. This advice is found in many forms throughout the Old and New Testaments. But this is not news to anyone who has been associated with Christianity or Judaism for any amount of time.

How we do that is up to us. As each of us is different, with different strengths and weaknesses, our path to living in the light will also be different.

But we have as aids the blessings of Scripture, of the Magisterium, the lives and examples of the saints. We also have the hundreds and thousands of books written for and about the faithful.  And always and above all, we have the life of Jesus.

Because, as we know, in Jesus there is no darkness at all.

Prayer

Father in heaven, lift us up into the light of your countenance. Dispel the darkness of our past hurts and disappointments, of our fears and our failures, and everything in our lives that leaves us in darkness of any kind.  Fill us with the light of life in the Holy Spirit. Guide us into following the footsteps of your Saints and especially your Son, that we may be doers of the Word and not just passive recipients. Thank you for the examples of those who have gone before us in the faith, and give us hope to follow them well enough to be remembered as examples when we have passed at last into your presence, which is all light and love forever.
Amen.