A Reflection for Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death
and brought life to light through the Gospel.
You can find the readings here.
I struggle with darkness. Not the figurative kind, though sometimes that, too, can be a challenge. But literal darkness, which can feel overwhelming particularly at this time of year.
Where I live, the sun will set this afternoon at 4:19. For the next few weeks, we’ll continue losing light at a fairly rapid pace; tomorrow will see more than two minutes more of darkness than today. Darkness comes earlier and earlier for another few weeks, when sunset bottoms out at 4:14 in the afternoon.
This fixation on, and animosity toward, darkness is partly why I cling to luminescent imagery whenever it appears in Scripture.
Today’s readings offer a couple of different kinds of light imagery, including olive trees and lampstands capable of destroying their enemies with fire. Not quite what I had in mind. Instead, I’m focused on the short selection from 2 Timothy, used during the Gospel acclamation:
Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death
and brought life to light through the Gospel.
I am reminded of a Christology course in college when a professor illuminated how powerfully the Bible’s use of light imagery would have been for people who lived before electricity. Darkness was common and sometimes it could be dangerous. Bad things happened in places where light was scarce. Christ the Light was more than the image of cozy comfort that it might be for people today. I think of candle-lit Advent services or the drama of the Pascal candle during the Easter Vigil. Beautiful, yes, but the candlelight is almost never the only means of illumination. Back then, when the Gospels were being written, the notion of Jesus as the light of the world offered a truly powerful image. Jesus provided the light needed to find one’s way in the world.
Today, many of us take light for granted.
Most people, especially those of us living in North America, Europe and Asia, experience so much light pollution that we cannot see the Milky Way at night, National Geographic reports. Many people are unable to see more than a small handful of stars because of all the artificial light that surrounds us. Only the most remote places on earth experience the total darkness that allows the grandeur of the heavens to be on full display.
Perhaps that’s why some of the light imagery in Scripture might lack the punch it once packed. We can illuminate our paths pretty easily whenever we want. And it’s increasingly difficult to let our imaginations and our souls get lost in the beauty of celestial light.
But during this time of year, as darkness becomes more present in our lives, I take some comfort in focusing on Jesus bringing life to light.
