A Holy Week Reflection for March 27, 2013

Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them. (John 12:35-36)


Darkness can be a comfort. When it’s time to sleep, darkness can soothe and quiet the human heart, offering an environment for rest. But it can also be a terror, obliterating all sense of orientation and direction, projecting fears of specters and skulkers into its inky blackness.

Even the smallest light—a wooden match, a birthday candle—can shatter darkness and reveal the true nature of our fears. Ghosts and goblins were only footstools and tables. But formerly dark corners assumed to be empty could be illuminated sufficiently to reveal hypodermic scorpions and invasive vipers. The light unmasks our fearful illusions but it also exposes dangers that disguise themselves as things benign.

John uses light imagery quite often. In this account, Jesus speaks of his own presence among his people as light in the midst of darkness. He calls upon them to “believe in the light.” At first it sounds as though he is talking about intellectual illumination, an enlightening of the mind that dispels the darkness of ignorance and false belief.

But there is more going on here than simply a mental shift. Jesus calls them to belief so that they “may become children of light.” There is the suggestion of transformation here, a movement of life from the immersion in darkness to an identity that is lit up like a Christmas tree. It hints at what would later be seen as the ultimate intention of God for the world: “See, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). Transitioning from darkness to light is more than a change of the mind; it is also a change of a life.

Once Jesus speaks these words—words that were somewhat cryptic to his hearers—he left them and hid for a while. When he was with them they were amazed, challenged, offended, horrified, and energized. Now they could experience his absence for a while, imagining what it would be like for him to be gone from them, leaving them in darkness.

Soon enough, they would find out. And so can we.

A Lenten Reflection for March 23, 2013

Then Jesus cried aloud: “Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge, for I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me.” (John 12:44-50)


Recently my 6-year-old grandson Jack complained to me that he couldn’t find his toy Star Wars light saber. I suggested that perhaps Darth Vader had slipped into his room and ran off with it. Jack replied dismissively, “He’s not real, dude.”

Aside from needing to recover from being called “dude” by my grandson (as though I were Grandpa Lebowski), it was an appropriate reality check: Avoid believing in things that aren’t real.

Jesus called upon people to believe in him. When we think of believing in him, we think of believing that he existed at a point in history, that he was who he claimed to be, and that he accomplished theologically exactly what we have been trained to understand.

But his original audience was called to believe in a different way. They didn’t have to stretch too far to believe that Jesus existed—he was standing right in front of them. They didn’t have access yet to any of the apostle Paul’s theological explorations about Jesus. Did they need to believe that he performed miraculous signs? All they had to do was hang around awhile for that one. That he was the Son of God? Yes, that one might have taken some work on their part.

But in this text from John, Jesus isn’t asking his hearers to believe in him the way people might believe in ghosts (or in Darth Vader, for that matter). The belief is directed toward God the Father. But these were first-century Jews, and they had no trouble believing in God. But there was something about God that Jesus wanted them to believe, something new and revelatory about God that would be new for them.

And in Jesus, they could see that new and revelatory thing. They already felt that they were under God’s judgment—that’s why the Romans were in charge of everything. But Jesus showed them the redeeming, saving, healing face of God, the face that their ancestors experienced long ago when being rescued from slavery in Egypt. Jesus wanted the people to believe what he was saying and doing—his words and his works—so that they might be reborn as God’s people, a people destined to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth, God’s people through whom all the families of the world would find blessing.

And many did believe. But enough didn’t believe and ultimately they won the day. The face of God that Jesus showed them impacted them in such a way that they could rise up and proclaim with one voice:

“Crucify him!”

Because, he was real, dude.