John's Prologue calls Jesus the "Light of the World" - he entered the darkness and shone so that we might become light. By seeking after the things of God (Goodness, Truth, and Beauty) we can become carriers of Christ's light to the world.
The Gospel we just read, the prologue to St John’s Gospel, is perhaps the most important passage of the New Testament. In the Catholic Church up until 1970 we read that exact passage at the end of every celebration of the Mass. It has been called the Gospel of the Gospels, the basic summary of the Good News packaged into just 18 short verses. It’s so deep and so rich, that one could spend hours on each line delving into what it reveals about the faith. For your benefit, and for mine, I won’t spend hours on it, but just a few minutes on a single line;
a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower.
That word, overpower, has a double meaning. In the Greek of the New Testament the word is κατέλαβεν (Katelaben) which St Jerome, the compiler of the Latin Bible, translated as comprehenderunt – those words can be translated as overpower, but could also be translated as comprehend, or understand; the light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it.
The Christmas message, indeed the whole Christian message, is that the light of the World entered the World as a human being, a light so bright and so powerful that the darkness could not understand, and thus could not overcome it. The Gospel readings yesterday, for the Sunday and on Christmas Eve the annunciation to Mary by the Angel Gabriel, the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, and the revelation of Christ to the Shepherds, is the slow revelation of this great and awesome mystery so beautifully summed up by St John’s prologue;
The Word was made flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory,
There is so much suffering and sorrow in the world, life can be difficult, there is (to speak figuratively) a great deal of darkness. And yet, we do not lose hope, because we know that even the tiniest flicker of light can dispel even the blackest darkness. Very often when I lock this church up at night, it is pitch black outside, and the only thing that stops me from blundering around in the darkness is the little flicker of a handful of candles, lit at the foot of the cross at the back of the Church, or by the statue of Our Lady in the Fatima Chapel to my right. The tiniest candle, a 20p tea light, is enough to illuminate this Church even in the blackest night.
The light entered the world, a small child, born to poverty, born in a stable in a backwater town in a backwater country, in an age of violence and uncertainty, and shone into that darkness. Why?
One day that child born in the manger would grow into a man, who would say to his disciples, you are the light of the world. He is the light, and through Him we are the light. St Athanasius, one of the Church Fathers of the fourth century, put it thus; God became man, so that man might become God. We might say, the Light of the World became man, so that man might become light for the world.
There is darkness, there is suffering, there is struggle; these are unavoidable facts of our fallen human nature. Yet we remain hopeful, because every kind word, every good deed, every loving gesture is like one of those little candles flickering around the Church at night. You, each one of you, can be a beacon of that Christ light, simply by going after the things of God; Goodness, and Truth, and Beauty. Three things which the darkness cannot comprehend, and cannot overcome.
If this seems trite, like the problems of the world are too great and too impossible to be overcome by something so small, I have to tell you; you couldn't be more wrong. Think back 109 years ago today, to the fields of Flanders not so far away, during the first World War. Think back to the Christmas Day truce. The truce was not the result of a grand plan, or the movements of great movers and shakers, but by something so small as a Christmas carol. A single German soldier starts to sing Silent Night in his trench. Others begin to join him, and more still, until up and down the German line, men are singing. The song carries over the trenches and across no-man's land, until the British soldiers take it up as well. Suddenly both sides are singing Silent Night together. Then the unthinkable happens. They get up out of their trenches, they shake hands, they exchange gifts, they play football together on the fields where not a day before they had been mercilessly slaughtering one another. A Christmas carol, sung by a handful of men, for a brief moment silenced the guns of war and all the horror ended – our brotherhood, our common humanity, prevailed. A tiny act of goodness, of truth, and of beauty, overwhelmed so great a darkness as the worst war in human history.
So do what is good, seek what is true, and make your little corner of the world as beautiful as you can, and you will do your part in completing the work begun by God before the beginning of time, and revealed in the birth of Christ; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not, nor will it ever, overcome it.
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