One of the strangest concepts we had to grasp in science class in school was the concept that light is "invisible." As concepts go, it is pretty un-intuitive. "I can see the beam of my flashlight in the dark," one may say, or, "If light is invisible, how come I can't see until someone turns on the light or the sun comes up?" I think what the concept means is that we cannot perceive light until we actually turn toward it. Light is very visible, but unless one has turned one's eyes to it, one cannot see it. What we see is what light we capture when it bounces off something and we capture it. If we shine a spotlight at a patch of snow, the reflected light that gets bounced everywhere is dazzling. If we shine the same into a yawning chasm underground, chances are we won't see anything because the light coming back is too scattered to pick up effectively.
Light and illumination are metaphors we use all the time to convey knowledge and understanding. We actually have to stand in its path, so to speak, to get it. If we avoid knowledge and understanding or turn our backs on it, we lose the benefit and do not perceive it. Much like light. When we don't perceive light, we call that darkness. When we don't perceive knowledge and understanding, we don't receive its benefit. Much like light.
The metaphors can extend way further than that.
Our readings for Mass today (see here) are all about being in a negative situation (called here darkness to convey a state where people do not perceive the love and mercy of God. Galilee of the first century had been ravaged by war, poverty, and losing their sense of God. In quoting the prophet Isaiah, the writer of this Gospel reflects the promise that God would start something in Galilee that would when perceived bring people out of that darkness into light, so to speak. That light is Jesus, and the message we see is that the Kingdom of God is near.
How is that light, one may ask? A reading of the Gospels, and by their witness the Law and the Prophets, tell us that the Kingdom of God is near to those who can see, who show mercy and love to others and who practice righteousness, and who walk closely with God. What happens when one does these things is that we start to see around ourselves God working among us, where the oppressed experience deliverance from their darkness, where the poor experience relief from their despair, that the marginalized see that they matter. When we don't obscure God, we can then see what God has done as the light bounces off all of that and we perceive it. When we perceive it, we then turn toward it, and see God as He has been revealed to us, our life, our mercy, our redemption from the darkness. Unless we look at His works, then turn to Him, we cannot see God, but if we open ourselves to Him, then we who have walked in great darkness will see the very source of light Himself.
Jesus' mission among us was to demonstrate this in His life, His teaching, even His death and resurrection. He showed mercy to the sinful, healed the sick, raised the dead, brought sanity to the possessed and the mentally afflicted, showed how to stay in constant communion with God and how to focus on doing His will for others, and showed what real sacrifice and love is when He took our eternal struggle against death and nothingness to the Cross and the Grave and then nullified them by rising again, to offer to us the eternal light in place of the eternal forgetfulness of the darkness of nothing. We who walk in darkness have indeed seen a great light. Let us turn to Him and be revived.
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