darkness and light

Darkness hides, darkness blinds.

When Jesus was talking to Nicodemus he noted that people love the darkness because they want to hide what they’re doing - you can read about it in the third chapter of the Gospel of John. It’s interesting, then, that when John wrote his first letter, he made darkness and light a major theme.

He starts already a few verses into the first chapter, with this (1:5-7): “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

The deeds of darkness flee the light of God. Sin cannot exist where God is.

John notes later in this letter that sinners are blinded by the darkness. If I stay in the dark, I can’t find my way. I wonder, does this blindness mean I can’t see truth? That I can’t see God? Not that - he must blaze like a bonfire to those in the dark.

It’s interesting to think that darkness isn’t really anything, it’s just an absence of light. To choose darkness isn’t a choice for anything, it’s a decision to avoid God. That’s one of the great lies the Father of Lies tells, that there is something good in the shadows. In reality there are  just stunted, blind creatures, like the ones you find deep in a cave. I find J.R.R. Tolkien’s character Gollum to be a great example of what happens when we choose the darkness.

It’s important for me to remember that when I head for the shadows to hide my sin, I just end up blinding myself and losing my way. If I expose my sin to the blazing heat of God’s love, it will die like a mushroom in the sun. And if I stick close to God, I stay in that safe place where sin doesn’t live.