The First Sunday after Christmas Day - December 30

Light Shines in the Darkness
John 1:1-18

The metaphors or images of darkness and light are important in John's Gospel. In the introduction to the Gospel, which is the reading appointed for this First Sunday after Christmas, we are given a vivid introduction to the symbolism of light and darkness.

From this morning's reading, in the New Revised Standard translation:  What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

I have always found that last line powerful. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.  Even the smallest of lights can be seen in the darkness.

But maybe you remember the King James translation of this verse: And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

To spend a little more time with this verse, I looked up a few additional translations.

From the New English Bible:  The light shines on in the dark, and the darkness has never mastered it.

From the New Jerusalem Bible:  Light shines in darkness and darkness could not overpower it. 

I have one more association with the verse.  From Benjamin Britten's opera Billy Budd.  So this is an opera by Britten, based on a novella by Herman Melville, with libretto by E. M. Forster (who was pretty handy with the English language.)  In it, there is a man who is evil:  John Claggert.  Claggert sees in the young man Billy Budd pure goodness.  And, in the opera, he responds by singing:  "O beauty, o handsomeness, goodness! Would that I ne’er encountered you! Would that I lived in my own world always, in that depravity to which I was born. There I found peace of a sort, there I established an order such as reigns in Hell. But alas, alas! The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehends it and suffers."  A reference to the King James translation.  The darkness does comprehend the light, but that comprehension brings suffering to the darkness.

It’s one Greek word, of course, that describes what the darkness cannot do to the light.  There are several translation challenges.  First, it is in the aorist. If I remember correctly, that's not a verb tense we really have in English. Basically, it is a past tense that implies continuing action. Hence some of the translations speaking of the light shining on and the darkness continuing to struggle.  And the meaning is difficult to translate. It can mean:

1) to grasp in the sense of comprehend
2) to welcome, receive, accept
3) to overcome, or grasp in a hostile sense
4) to master

These are what the darkness would, but cannot do, to the light that has come into the world.

Whatever meaning the word takes, it speaks of a darkness that has will, motivation. The darkness is Godlessness within ourselves, within our world.  Those places within ourselves and within our world that turn away from Christ.  And those places of darkness are not passive; they are not just an absence of light.  The darkness has will, motivation, power.  Do not underestimate it.

And the darkness interacts with the light. The darkness perceives the light.  In the presence of the light, the darkness suffers, and would quench its beam.  The darkness struggles against the light... tries to overcome, comprehend, master, overpower.

But the darkness will never prevail. However you translate it, John says it.  Even the most powerful darkness will...  not...  prevail...  over the Light of Christ.  The tiniest candle can be seen throughout a vast and empty room. A single star will guide wise travelers across continents as they come seeking God. A tiny baby embodies all of heaven's brilliance. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not, can not, will not overcome it.