Light shines brightest in darkness

Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord

Imagine that the journey of life was all cozy and rosy. That everything worked out as we wished and there was absolutely no pain. How could you appreciate the presence of something if you have never known its absence? Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. Sorrow and joy, darkness and light, pain and happiness, these things serve as the lower and upper limits of the scale of life. They enable us to measure situations and moments in our lives. Without one, it becomes impossible to appreciate the other. We need to understand darkness to comprehend the light. To appreciate life, we must accept death as part of the equation. To live is to experience wholeness.

Today’s feast similarly gives wholeness and a necessary balance to the entire Christmas story. Its placement in the calendar positions, Epiphany as the fulfilment of Advent and the climax of Christmas. While in Advent the Church awaits the coming of the light of the Messiah, at Christmas the Church beholds the incarnation of God in flesh, and on Epiphany the Church celebrates that God has come to make His glory known to the world, in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. During Advent, the Church seeks God’s intervention for humanity still covered by darkness. At Christmas the Church declares that God has assumed our humanity, by inserting His light into the darkness. On Epiphany the Church asserts that God has made Himself known to all humanity, the Light now shines in the darkness.

The movement from Advent to Epiphany marks a progression from darkness to light, which is why Epiphany sometimes is called the Feast of Lights. Advent anticipates God’s promised light that will come to dispel the darkness. Christmas praises God for His light that has been born into the darkness. Epiphany rejoices that God’s light has come to the world and has manifest itself to those living in darkness. And so, with Isaiah, on Epiphany the Church proclaims: “Arise, shine out, Jerusalem, for your light has come, the glory of the Lord is rising on you.”

Yes, the feast of Epiphany is rightly called the festival of light, although there are many other contenders for this title. I would like to think of it as more a festival of twilight, rather than a blast of sunlight. The most picturesque scene is never captured when the sun is high in the sky or when the land is covered in the darkness of the night. The most beautiful painting on God’s canvas of nature is often wrought in the twilight hours of sunset and sunrise, where both light and darkness mingle and produce the most amazing myriad of colours. And thus, twilight often marks the significant hours of our Lord’s life: His birth in Bethlehem in the darkness of the night of Christmas; His death on a cross on Good Friday where daylight was darkened by an eclipse; His resurrection in the darkness before the dawn of Easter; and when His birth and presence was manifested by the star which shone in the dark and led the magi to His bedside on this feast.

In Isaiah’s prophecy in the first reading, we witness the intermingling of light and darkness. The prophecy announces that the “light has come” and yet “night still covers the earth and darkness the peoples.” How could this be? How could light coexist with darkness side-by-side? Well, darkness is not a “thing” which exist. Just like evil does not ontologically exist as an entity, evil is the mere absence of good. Likewise, darkness is the absence of light, without it, we would never know what it means to not have light. That is to say, we would take the presence of light for granted, we would never fully see how lucky we are to have light. So anytime you find yourself in a difficult situation, anytime you find yourself in darkness, always remember that brighter days will come, and when they do, you will find and appreciate joy more than you would have if joy had been a simple daily occurrence without interruption.

In the account of the visit of the magi in the gospel, we see the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah: “The nations come to your light and kings to your dawning brightness.” It is this association with the “kings” and “nations” of Isaiah’s prophecy and not from our gospel text, which had inspired the tradition that the magi were three kings representing three continents in the ancient world - Europe, Africa and Asia. Once again in this familiar tale that has been immortalised in Christmas pageants, carols and crèche scenes, we see the intermingling of light and darkness. While the visit of the Magi—representing the nations of the world—is an unmistakable sign that the salvation offered by the newborn King is for all times and peoples, writers through the ages saw the Magi’s journey as a metaphor for conversion and the journey of faith that each of us is traveling, a journey that often passes through the valley of darkness. It is precisely the darkness of antagonists like the politically insecure Herod or the religious leaders of his time which makes the story of Epiphany and our story so much brighter. How could virtue shine more valiantly, if it was not surrounded by the darkness of vice and sin?

Following the inspiration of God, the story of Epiphany and our own story move from the darkness of doubt and sin, entering into the light and freedom of God’s children. This inspired Pope Benedict XVI’s reflexion on this feast, when he wrote: “How important it is that we Christians are faithful to our vocation! Every authentic believer is always traveling his own personal itinerary of faith, and at the same time, with the little light that he carries within himself, can and must be a help to those alongside him, and even help the one for whom finding the way that leads to Christ is difficult.”

The “night still covers the earth and darkness the peoples,” but the light of Christ has come into the world, and that has made all the difference. Our lives may now be covered in darkness, but dawn is on the way, the night of doubt and uncertainty would soon be over. But even in this experience of darkness, even in the dark night of the soul, the heavenly light that guided the Magi still shines in the Gospel, which continues to guide us along our pilgrim way. As we look upon the crèche, we cannot stay there. Like the shepherds and the magi, we too are called to move away and take the light of Jesus with us. We are asked not only to admire the light, but to be people of light. As Jesus Himself tells us, you are the light of the world and your light must shine. The gift of this great Christmas feast reminds us that the Church, and every person of faith, has been entrusted with that same light and we are called to carry that light into the dark places of the world in our prayer, words, and acts of charity.