The Light of God surrounds me

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

The darkness seems to be a scary place. We can’t see where we are going, and we can’t identify hazards that might be surrounding us. Darkness feels empty. But the truth is that just because we can’t see what’s in a dark place, it doesn’t mean that there is nothing there. Darkness does not necessarily mean absence, and it certainly does not mean the absence of God. Darkness is a part of life, a backdrop for the stars at night, the space between what you know. Darkness has a way of reminding you of the light you’ve been given on all those other days. This unsettling truth emerges – You have to know the darkness before you can truly appreciate the light. It is that same darkness that makes us open to welcome the soothing rays of light.

The readings that we have heard today provide us with this compelling and consoling message of hope. The light of hope can even be found in the darkness of despair. The gospel is tied to the prophecy of Isaiah in the first reading. When Isaiah proclaimed the oracle, he perceived as darkness and gloom the fact that the northern kingdom was tottering under the blows of foreign oppression. For those who regarded this political crisis in the north as the death knell for the southern kingdom, Isaiah held out the hope of a light in the darkness. In the midst of human failure and defeat, Isaiah promised that those who remained faithful would be blessed with the light of victory. The fulfilment of the Isaian prophecy will not take place during the lifetime of the prophet, but it forms an apt description of what the birth of Jesus and His public ministry meant for the world living in darkness. Christ is the light who shines in the darkness of human need and suffering, Jesus’ advent is the saving dawn, the penetrating ray of justice and truth.

In the second reading, we are confronted with the painful truth that darkness is not just a reality kept at bay outside the confines of our Church. The truth of the matter is that the dark has insidiously crept into the Church and resides within its shadows. Personality cults, political affiliations, ideological positions threatened to break the unity of the Church of Corinth. Four competing groups had emerged with each claiming that its own leader was superior to other leaders and therefore that its version of the gospel was superior to that of the other groups. Paul, himself, had been dragged into this factious battle. Directly confronting each of these factional groups, and even his own party stalwarts, Paul reminded the Christians in Corinth of their basic unity in Christ. That unity, challenged Paul, was to supersede every human preference and was superior to every human wisdom, however attractive. With the light of Christ at her centre, the darkness of her members will never overcome the Church.

We continue to witness how the light of Christ can penetrate the darkness of humanity in the gospel today. It begins on a troubling note – a moment of darkness for Jesus - John the Baptist, his cousin and in some respects his mentor, has just been arrested by Herod for his defiant preaching in response to Herod's marriage. After hearing of the arrest of John, St Matthew tells us that Jesus withdrew to Galilee. Outwardly this may seem to be motivated by a feeling of personal defeat and fear. Such a reading may indicate the uncontested victory of darkness over the light, indeed over the very source of Light. But, Jesus’ withdrawal is not a flight from danger or a retreat into security. He withdraws to Galilee to prepare for a major comeback. It was like the dark sky right before the bright Morning Star appears. To defeat the darkness, He understands that He must enter into the very maelstrom of that darkness; heHe must be totally identified with the people characterised by Isaiah as the ones ‘who walked in darkness’ and ‘live in a deep shadow.’

Just as our Lord had called these first disciples to emerge from the darkness of their past and come into the light , it is crucial for each of us to recognise this personal call that Christ makes to us, to leave any and all darkness behind and follow Him into the light, to live and walk always illumined by Him. The Lord summons us to follow Him into the light so that we, in turn, can become His light. Discipleship is thus heeding the call to walk and live with Christ to follow Him on that pilgrimage out of the gloom and darkness of our existence.

If there is anyone here today who still walks in that darkness, do not grow too accustomed to it. When you spend too much time in the darkness, you will eventually find it more comfortable than the light. Come to His light — walk no longer in darkness! No matter how difficult things may seem, no matter how bleak, no matter how dark life may become, His light shines in the midst of darkness and the darkness can never overcome it.

And so here we are in the ordinariness of our daily existence, each moment poised between light and darkness – confronted with so many choices. We can choose to be positive or to be consumed by the negative, to live with hopeful optimism or cynical pessimism, to be trapped in fear or to be liberated by faith, to be children of the Light or of Darknessdarkness, to follow Christ or the world. It is a simple choice. It is a choice to be made by everyone, a choice that can change us and change our lives and change the world all around us. We can choose to be victims and be silent participants of a world that seems darkened by sin and death, drugs and violence, loneliness and despair, injustice and poverty, hostility and bigotry, hopelessness and cynicism, or we could choose to shine the light of Christ therein and allow that light to transform everything it touches. In the light of Christ, our vision is renewed, our strength rejuvenated, and our story changes - we come to realise that our story can be a story not of despair but one of hope, a journey from heartbreak to happiness, a journey from the dark into the light.

Remember “Buzz Lightyear” of the Toy Story fame? Well, he is named after the famous astronaut, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, one of only two astronauts who stepped foot on the moon in 1969. Buzz carried this prayer with him, a prayer likely inspired by the famous prayer of St Patrick (the Lorica or Breastplate prayer). In the darkness and isolation of space, with only darkness as an “old friend,” this prayer must have been a blazing beacon of light pushing back all the darkness of the universe. May this be our prayer too:

The Light of God surrounds me;
The Love of God enfolds me;
The Power of God protects me;
The Presence of God watches over me;
Wherever I am, God is,
And all is well.
Amen. (‘Prayer of Protection,’ by James Dillet Freeman)