"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light..."

Walking in the neighborhood the other day, Estee and I visited with a neighbor couple. We listened to them speak of how much they are going to miss being at church for Easter. Knowing that we are pastors, our neighbors asked if we were going to have worship this weekend. We said that we would have worship service on Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

My neighbor asked, “Why are you having worship on Thursday?”

Estee, being the more eloquent one of the two of us, said that Thursday is Maundy Thursday and that we remember the new commandment of Jesus at the foot washing to love one another.

The other neighbor said, “We plan to attend worship at our church on Saturday.”

I asked, “what do you all do for worship on Saturday?”

Our neighbors began to share how their church is so large that they have Easter services on Friday, Saturday and Sunday the weekend of Easter. And it was at that moment I realized that the church our neighbors participate in does not celebrate Maundy Thursday or Good Friday. They only celebrate Easter this weekend.

I get it. Easter is fun and delightful. It is full of light and hope. It is perhaps the story and season we need right now more than anything. I am very pro Easter. Listening to my neighbors, I was reminded of something Carl Jung wrote: “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The later procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”

Compared to Easter, a day of light, Good Friday is not popular. We are drawn to light and hope and resurrection. This is great. Again, I am pro Easter. However, as appealing it is to rush to Easter Sunday, perhaps it is worth reflecting on Jung’s words here. Christ did not transform the world by showing us just where the light is. Christ transformed the world by bringing to our awareness just how much darkness there is. If there is no awareness of the darkness, then we will not join with God in Christ to repair the world.

Christ feed people not because he saw there was an abundance of food the world could produce, but because he saw the darkness of injustice around him. He healed people not because he only wanted us to have life abundant, but to bring to our mind that there there is injustice in the healthcare systems that favor the rich and ignore the poor. Christ did not forgive the sin of the world purely out of the mercy of grace but in the hopes that we all would see that we too are in need of forgiveness and to be gentle with one another.

This Good Friday is Good because it brings darkness to our consciousness. It forces us to look into the darkness of the world, not to turn away but to look and discover that the darkness is good because it brings “enlightenment” in ways we otherwise would have never seen if we only chased the light.

Preacher Barbara Brown Taylor said that she has spent her whole life “with seekers of enlightenment” and that she n”ever once heard anyone speak in hushed tones about the value of endarkenment.”

It is popular to celebrate Easter this whole weekend. We all are pro Easter.

But do not forget that we could only see the Light of Sunday because of Friday’s darkness.

God is like light NOT God is light (right?)

There are endless metaphors about God. One of the metaphors that is very popular in the Bible is God is light. It is worth remembering that this is a metaphor. Which means, like all metaphors, there is a point that the metaphor breaks down. 

For instance, when we think that God is light (as opposed to God as light) then there is a fear of the dark. There is an embracing of all things light. We talk about that God is found in the light places of the world. God is found in the happy and the bright and sunny places. And, on the inverse, God is not found in the dark and the dark is to be feared and avoided. 

Again, it is worth noting that God is not light. God it like light.

It is also worth noting that, in the same spirit, God is like darkness. There is no place that one can be where God is not (Psalm 139). 

It is my prayer that our spirituality of the dark will become as developed as our spirituality of the light.

How do we develop our spirituality of the dark? There are others in the faith that are much more qualified to speak to this matter (Taylor, John of the Cross, Rohr, etc.) however there is one quick note about developing a spirituality of the dark - In order to see what our shadow sides have to teach us, we have to turn away from the light. 

I know this may feel like heresy. I get it. We are very convinced that God is light. But again, God is not light, God is like light. And, God is like darkness.