The light of the world

4^th Sunday of Lent Year B 2018:

Now, you might be wondering why I am wearing rose colored vestments this week.  This is known as Laetare Sunday, which comes from the opening antiphon, it means: rejoice.  Just like in Advent when we wear rose vestments on the third Sunday of Advent, the rose is a reminder of the joy that awaits us at the end of this penitential season.  I think this is an important point.  I mean, I hope you have had a great season of Lent.  I hope it has been a time for growth in your spiritual life because of your practices of self-denial.  But, there is a point to this whole thing, right?  Lent is not an annual season of self-flagellation.  Rather, it’s a chance to grow and renew our lives so that we can celebrate the feast of our redemption with great joy.  So, even though this is a season of self-denial, it is a season of joy.

In fact, all of Christian life should be filled with joy.  Why?  God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, so that we might have life.  There is a reason why this one of the most famous lines in the whole Bible.  It is so filled with love and hope that it makes us joyful: God loves us.  Anytime we think about Jesus, we should always remember that he is the proof of God’s love. 

So, even during this season of Lent, even during these days in our “desert” we are filled with joy.  Why?  Because God loves us.  But, I would like to call your attention to the rest of the reading.  I mean, it can be easy for us to pay attention to the beginning of this passage and to miss the rest of it.  But, I find it really interesting, and a great help as to understand what we are doing during the season of Lent.

St. John puts things in terms of light and dark.  These are powerful metaphors.  And we have all experienced them before.  We know what it means to be in the light and to be in the dark.  I remember going on a youth trip one time where we stopped off at a cave down in Kentucky somewhere.  During part of the tour, when we were well underground, the tour guide said: “ok, now we will give you a chance to experience pure darkness.”  They turned out the lights.  And, I’m telling you, unless you’ve had this kind of experience, you don’t know what it means to have pure darkness.  Whether my eyes were opened or closed, it made no difference.  There was absolutely no light.  After about 4 tenths of a second of pure darkness, I was getting freaked out.  Luckily they didn’t leave the lights off for too long.

This is the kind of darkness that John is talking about when describing humanity after sin.  The fall of our first parents removed us from God’s presence.  This fall led humanity out of the light and into the darkness.  The darkness is a place without hope, a place without joy.  The dark is full of fear, anxiety, hopelessness.   But, God did not leave us in the darkness.  He sent Christ to be the light of the world.  And yet, some people prefer to remain in the darkness.

Why would anyone want to stay in the darkness?  The light is always way better than the darkness.  I couldn’t get out of that cave fast enough.  But, imagine if you lived in that cave your whole life?  The outside might seem scary.  That bright sun might seem like too much.  The same is true of Christ.  Having gotten so used to sin, holiness can seem scary.  It might seem scary to try to follow Christ, to give up the comfort of our darkness, our sins and our selfishness.  St. John’s words are still true today: some have preferred the darkness. 

This is why Lent is so great.  It’s a chance for us to venture out into the light.  It is a time for us to consciously and specifically look at the darkness in our lives.  I’m sure each one of us is guilty of preferring the darkness to the light at times in our lives.  But, the light is always way better than the darkness.  So, let’s look to Christ, the light of the world.  He came to lead us out of darkness and into God’s wonderful light.