Not A Cop Out.

When the darkness is at its deepest and the blackness is beyond being penetrated, the light still shines with its overcoming power.  Count on it.  The Word says in the beginning of John's gospel, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."  (John 1:5)  I have always been partial to John's gospel.  Unlike Matthew with his propensity for telling folks how to live, John chose to speak of the way by creating images for his readers to ponder.  The Sermon on the Mount is a black and white definitive Word requiring no imagination, but John constantly uses words to create pictures that leave us pondering.

 

I have always been more than a little skeptical of those who have it all figured out.  Some folks seem to have a way with the Word which enables them to go to chapter and verse to explain any situation.  My search for that kind of certainty has more than not left me with an even greater uncertainty and questions for which there seem to be no satisfactory answers.  While I would like to be able to understand these days of trouble and speak to others in a way that sets their spiritual needs to ease, it is for this preacher an impossible struggle.  All I know is that we live in a world where some things make perfect sense and other things make no sense at all.

 

As John throws out this image of darkness and light, he gives my spirit permission to wander around midst an unexplainable mystery that makes me think of Annie Dillard's  "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" where she writes about the creation being full of the "now you see it, now you don't."  Sometimes as I ponder the darkness heavy upon us, I think I have some understanding, but if I dare to look a little longer, I realize I have no understanding at all.  While some might say it is a cop out to intellectual thought, I fall back on faith.  It is not understanding that enables me to live midst the deep darkness, but faith in the Light of the World whose presence and power cannot be overcome.