‘The Light shines in the darkness’

The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. -John 1:5

THIS WELL-KNOWN line from the Gospel of John is an announcement of the Good News that Jesus Christ, the Light, has conquered the darkness in which the world is shrouded. He has defeated hatred with love, sadness with joy, and brought life where there was death. Stirring as these words are, it is easy to take the striking image as mere metaphor, as a pretty, idealised, yet tame, image of God: a sunny day as opposed to an overcast one.

But the Evangelist wasn’t writing in tame times. The Early Church did not have an easy existence. Followers of Christ attracted harassment and persecution from all sides, religious and secular, from the beginning. Many Christians found themselves ostracised by their families and communities, unable to earn a living or remain in their homes. And then came the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem in 70 AD, which, being a symbol of Christ himself, would have appeared to the early Church to be an event of apocalyptic significance. Christians were scattered in the wake of the upheaval, many all the way to Asia Minor. John himself spent time in Ephesus, but was ultimately exiled to Patmos, where tradition has it he wrote his Gospel.

Modern Biblical scholars find the book to be full of references and signposts to the darkness and difficulty of John’s times, and yet it is also full of dramatic images of light conquering darkness, calling to mind another familiar passage from Sacred Scripture: a prophetic verse that may well have been in John’s mind when he composed his great prologue concerning Christ as the Light:

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. -Isaiah 9:1

The Evangelist saw this light shining through the darkness that surrounded him, bringing light to his loved ones, whom he enjoined:

If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another -1 Jn 1:7

This fellowship of those who walk together in the Light of Christ has another name: it is the Church.

In 2020 the darkness of our own times deepened as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe, bringing sickness and death, fear and suffering, isolation and loneliness to so many people, including those living within the Diocese of Westminster. As a part of the Church, walking in the light of Christ and bonded to each other in the fellowship of shared love of God and faith in his promises, the intention of the Diocese during the pandemic was to continue to make the Light of God shine through the darkness.

In many ways, from the adaptations parishes made to allow for the safe practice of public communal worship, including live-streaming for those who could not join in person, to the incredible efforts of the diocesan schools on behalf of the children and young people whose education was disrupted, to the swift expansion of food provision and funding to meet the rising need caused by under-employment and job loss during the pandemic, each strand of diocesan mission has been shaped to ensure that, no matter the darkness, God’s Light can be seen clearly in the work of the Charity and in the love and compassion of its people towards those in need.

The Gospel was not written to gild the lily, to add extra, ornamental joy to already easy or happy times. The Gospel speaks to those undergoing tribulation of a light powerful enough to guide us through any hardship. 2020 was not the year the Gospel finally faltered and fell silent; it was a year in which the Gospel was more needed and relevant than ever. This was the conviction that animated the work of the Charity, even in the midst of a global pandemic, so that when we look back on a year filled with hardship the words of the Evangelist ring true.

The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.