Darkness and Light

When God first formed the earth, when it was ‘without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep’ it must have been such a thick impenetrable darkness, where you would be able to see absolutely nothing at all. The human eye requires an input of light, however tiny: when we say that our eyes adapt to the dark, they actually simply adapt to a lesser light. Those creatures who live in the very depths of the oceans, where the darkness must be as it was in the first days, are almost always, perhaps always (I don’t know enough about it) blind. There is no point in their having sight when there is no light. They use sonar and radar and other ways of experiencing their surroundings.


Then God spoke: ‘Let there be light’ – and light was. What is interesting, though, is that for a brief moment light and darkness must have co-existed, because we are told that God separated the darkness from the light: so initially they were together, as good and evil can co-exist in one person. God did not banish darkness; it has a part to play in the creation. He gave it a separate existence and a dedicated time. We are so used to associating darkness with evil that perhaps we have to readjust our thinking to some extent. Darkness is beneficial, restful, peaceful. Some people find it almost impossible to sleep unless the room is very dark; some animals only come out at night. Sleep, which our bodies expect to do in the dark hours, is vital for our physical and psychological wellbeing: non-stop light is used as a torture and a disorienting device; our body clocks are attuned to a rhythm of darkness and light. It is a strange thing that we call the combination of night-time and daylight ‘a day’ using the more positive word for the two: in the same way, we who are both sinner and saint are known as ‘saints’: the darkness and the sin are outweighed by the light and the holiness. We are told, too, that ‘the evening and the morning were the first day’ etc: it would make more sense to say ‘the morning and the evening’ but with the phrase as it is in the bible, we have the morning, the light, the grace of God, as the final word. There is no evening to the seventh day; God’s grace has won out.


Yet the contrast between darkness and light runs right through the bible and is also used metaphorically, as I said, to indicate the play of good and evil. Light is entirely necessary for most life forms and with light usually comes warmth. The sun was venerated as a god throughout the ages as the cold, dark winter days gave way to the life-giving, crop-growing warmth of spring and summer. Yet in some places, where to us in Britain the sun comes as a friend, there are parts of the world where it is almost an enemy, to be hidden from, to be endured as it beats down unmercifully.

 We use phrases all the time that equate light with knowledge: ‘that puts a new light on it’, ‘casting light upon a subject’, ‘seeing something in a new light’: and the opposite: ‘I’m completely in the dark about that’.


So, imagine the total darkness of the pre-light world and the coming of God’s light. To me, the most poetic verse in the entire bible is in Isaiah where it says, ‘the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light’. If you are in the light, you think how wonderful it is that the light should come into the darkness and illuminate the people: but if you are used to that total blackness, where you might as well be blind for all you can see, the light would come surely as something of a mixed blessing: perhaps something to be feared at first as your eyes shut automatically to protect themselves, as your mind assimilates this new thing, as you suddenly have to take in a whole new landscape that was hidden from you before. And as you become more and more used to the light, you will take in more and more detail of what you can see, you will perhaps understand things that you did not understand before. It sounds so amazing that the light should come, but when you stop and think, how would it really feel? If you are expecting it, a sunrise for example, and you are prepared, it is completely wonderful; but if it comes from nowhere, wouldn’t it be a little scary? In the same way, it seems to me, when the light that is God and telling of God first comes to people, it can be frightening as new things so often are; but as you become accustomed to it, you will see it in more detail and understand things hidden from you before.


Most of the verses that came instinctively to my mind when preparing this were from the New Testament, when the Light of the World became man. In some ways, it can be compared to a sunrise in that the Jews were expecting a Messiah who would deliver them – not this Messiah, mostly, but they were expecting something wonderful to happen. But there were those who recognised him straightaway, notably Simeon in the temple (Luke 2:29-32): ‘For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.’ Simeon could see in this tiny baby what others could not see in the grown man: he could see God’s hand bringing light into the world; not the light of initial Creation but a new light. In Dickens’ story of a Christmas Carol, can you remember what Christmas Present hid under his robe and what he said? He said beware of these two, the girl is ignorance and the boy is want. Ignorance and want are the enemies of humanity and part of the light that Christ brings is knowledge and God’s promises.


Perhaps the best known quotations of all come from John: ‘In him was life; and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it’ ‘.The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world’. Also, from his first letter: ‘God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not tell the truth’. ‘And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil’. Light is that which enables us to see clearly; darkness is equated here with ignorance, with untruth, with deception.

 In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about our eyes: ‘The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!’ (Matthew 6:22-23) Our eyes are the only way we can see; if we shut our eyes, light cannot enter. If we have cataracts or glaucoma or some other disease of the eyes, or the optic nerve, we will not see clearly. If we refuse to look and recognise Jesus, the light of salvation cannot reach our hearts. If we refuse to learn, to listen, to look properly at what is around us, we will live in a state of internal darkness. We may call it light, but it is doubly dark because intentional. Part of our responsibility as human beings is to look for the truth – the immortal truths, as we have said before, not an expedient ‘truth for me’ which is variable and subjective.

 As you probably know by now, I have a great affection for the King James: partly because I feel that the modern translations are too explanatory and cut off a lot of possible associations and meanings. I feel this about the famous passage in 1 Corinthians 13: the NIV says: Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face’. In the authorised Version it says: ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known’. To me, the mirror reflection suggests that you are looking at yourself and your own world and not seeing clearly; but ‘through a glass, darkly’ implies a wide-ranging lack of knowledge, which flows into the following phrases. The glass is more like a window than a mirror: you are looking outwards. It may not be the image that is unclear, as in the NIV, it is the looker who is unable to make sense of what he sees because he does not have the information to decode it.


We talked previously about the equation between blindness and not-knowing. As I have tried to show earlier, blindness and darkness carry the same message of not seeing, not knowing. When Saul had his vision on the road to Damascus, he was blind as he was led into the city. The overwhelming light was too much, his eyes were not used to it, his heart and brain were not ready for it: so he was given a short period of blindness to come to terms with a whole new way of seeing. The blindness marked an end to his Pharisaic terms of thought and behaviour and his restored sight was the beginning of a new life, clarified by a new light. We talked about Bartimeus and the other blind men who came to Jesus for healing: he asked each of them what they wanted and their answer was, ‘I want to see.’ We have to want to see the new truth before it will be given to us.



There is a poem by Robert Frost about mending a stone wall between his property and his neighbour’s. He says he doesn’t really understand why there should be a wall there as he has apple orchards and his neighbour has pine trees and they cannot hurt each other. The poet waxes a little fanciful about why the wall should fall: ‘I could say ‘elves’ to him but it’s not elves exactly, and besides, I’d rather he said it for himself.’ He then says of the neighbour ‘he moves in darkness as it seems to me, not of woods only and the shade of trees.’ His father had told him that ‘good fences make good neighbours’ and, the poet says, he liked this phrase so much that he could not reason around it. The neighbour is closed to anything he cannot see or touch, he lives by habit and his mind cannot escape and seek truth outside. Such people will never be able to understand Jesus’ message, will shut their eyes against the light, will turn their backs and go back into the warm, welcoming, comfortable and unthreatening darkness. The darkness demands nothing of you, as ignorance demands nothing of you: to look at the world in the light of day and to appreciate its beauty and its intricacy requires a modicum of effort: to try to understand your own place in the creation, to learn about God and Jesus and to understand about obedience and freedom requires a great deal. People have the impression that ‘freedom’ is an absolute good available to everyone: but true freedom is very difficult to handle, it comes with great responsibility and makes great demands, otherwise it simply turns into anarchy and chaos. Being free in the kingdom of God still demands an effort on our part, obedience and acceptance of God’s law.