light

My Dad used to say, “Nothing good happens after midnight.” It was his way of trying to teach me that a whole different kind of people are out and about in the dark of the night, doing a whole different kind of things. That was a world where it would be easy for a teen-aged boy to find trouble.

I often think of that as I read scripture about light and darkness. All that is good and right, especially the divine influence of God in this world, is described as light.

My favorite such passage is John 1:1-5:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

This passage, beginning a Gospel that will tell of the life of Jesus, also goes back to the time of Genesis. In the book of John, the birth of Jesus isn’t described so much as the birth of the world – for John, they were linked.

This weekend we passed through the darkness of Good Friday to the glorious light of Easter. It reminds me that darkness flees from light, and that where the Light of the World is, darkness cannot be. If there’s darkness where I am, then I’m in the wrong place.