4th Week of Easter 2006: Acts 12.24-13.5; John 12.44.50
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX
[Fair warning: preaching the gospel of John sometimes makes me weird!]
Get comfortable, breath deeply, let go of all fear, guilt, anxiety, thought, and surround yourself with bright, white light. “Run to the Light, Carol Ann! Run to the light!” Focus on your inner child and project a ray of light into the world. Hold hands in a circle, clear your minds, and generate a barrier of brilliant light around Earth. When I died I saw a welcoming, nonjudgmental Light at the end of the tunnel, urging me forward. Lord, give us your Light…small “l” light, capital “L” Light, and “lite,” l-i-t-e.
Sun, moon, stars. Fire, electric bulbs, phosphorus. Exploding gas, erupting volcano, lightning flash. Radiance, illumination, glow. Morning, day, noon. Rescue from Darkness, lamp at midnight, candle against the pitch. All of these are images, words, ideas linked to our primitive need for light, our primordial search for knowing, seeing, figuring things out. We reach for light switches, table lamps, headlights in order to cook, read, drive to work. In seeking out and finding what is lost, we manage it best in the light--distinguishing between this and that, avoiding danger, stepping around obstacles and over limits, seeing edges, relative positions.
Darkness is a vast sameness, an infinite indistinction, an absence of shapes, sizes, limits, edges. To be in darkness is to be without definition, without clarity or contrast. Light, however, shines on reality, brightening what is there, making the stuff of Here and Now visible—height, length, color, identity. To be in the Light is to know definition, clarity, contrast. Darkness is ignorance…light is knowledge.
Jesus concludes his public ministry by declaring rather sharply what has only been hinted at up until now: believe in me and what I have taught and you accept my Father who sent me. Do this and you step into the light of our salvation. Disbelieve in me and what I have taught and you reject my Father who sent me. Do this and you remain in darkness. Come into the light or dwell in darkness. The choice is stark and easy. And it is one we make daily, hourly against the temptations of despairing of God’s mercy, surrendering to the passions, submitting to false teachings; choices against the temptations of setting up idols and altars to our egos, our inordinate desires, our failures to love; choosing against the temptation to blind ourselves to the shapes, sizes, and edges of the truth.
When we believe the Word, we take it in, we plant it, we let it grow—wildly, without fence or tie—we feed it our love and obedience, letting its brightness shine out, radiate through the words of our mouth and the work of our hands to light the way for others. When we believe the Word, it sets us ablaze, urging us to spread the fire. We become Holy Pyromaniacs—crazy for speaking the truth, thirsty for righteousness, hungry for heaven. And possessed by a spirit of holiness that needs for us to speak the Word to the world, to talk about the light of Christ, to make what we do illuminative of his saving work for us.
The Father’s command to us is eternal life. To live in His glory, his splendor. Hear Jesus’ words then, believe them, observe them, and know that you are rescued from the dark.
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX
[Fair warning: preaching the gospel of John sometimes makes me weird!]
Get comfortable, breath deeply, let go of all fear, guilt, anxiety, thought, and surround yourself with bright, white light. “Run to the Light, Carol Ann! Run to the light!” Focus on your inner child and project a ray of light into the world. Hold hands in a circle, clear your minds, and generate a barrier of brilliant light around Earth. When I died I saw a welcoming, nonjudgmental Light at the end of the tunnel, urging me forward. Lord, give us your Light…small “l” light, capital “L” Light, and “lite,” l-i-t-e.
Sun, moon, stars. Fire, electric bulbs, phosphorus. Exploding gas, erupting volcano, lightning flash. Radiance, illumination, glow. Morning, day, noon. Rescue from Darkness, lamp at midnight, candle against the pitch. All of these are images, words, ideas linked to our primitive need for light, our primordial search for knowing, seeing, figuring things out. We reach for light switches, table lamps, headlights in order to cook, read, drive to work. In seeking out and finding what is lost, we manage it best in the light--distinguishing between this and that, avoiding danger, stepping around obstacles and over limits, seeing edges, relative positions.
Darkness is a vast sameness, an infinite indistinction, an absence of shapes, sizes, limits, edges. To be in darkness is to be without definition, without clarity or contrast. Light, however, shines on reality, brightening what is there, making the stuff of Here and Now visible—height, length, color, identity. To be in the Light is to know definition, clarity, contrast. Darkness is ignorance…light is knowledge.
Jesus concludes his public ministry by declaring rather sharply what has only been hinted at up until now: believe in me and what I have taught and you accept my Father who sent me. Do this and you step into the light of our salvation. Disbelieve in me and what I have taught and you reject my Father who sent me. Do this and you remain in darkness. Come into the light or dwell in darkness. The choice is stark and easy. And it is one we make daily, hourly against the temptations of despairing of God’s mercy, surrendering to the passions, submitting to false teachings; choices against the temptations of setting up idols and altars to our egos, our inordinate desires, our failures to love; choosing against the temptation to blind ourselves to the shapes, sizes, and edges of the truth.
When we believe the Word, we take it in, we plant it, we let it grow—wildly, without fence or tie—we feed it our love and obedience, letting its brightness shine out, radiate through the words of our mouth and the work of our hands to light the way for others. When we believe the Word, it sets us ablaze, urging us to spread the fire. We become Holy Pyromaniacs—crazy for speaking the truth, thirsty for righteousness, hungry for heaven. And possessed by a spirit of holiness that needs for us to speak the Word to the world, to talk about the light of Christ, to make what we do illuminative of his saving work for us.
The Father’s command to us is eternal life. To live in His glory, his splendor. Hear Jesus’ words then, believe them, observe them, and know that you are rescued from the dark.
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