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see on our own is pitifully shallow, because we typically only see the shadows of
truth. If we want to see the real thing, the evangelist advises we look in another
direction; we look to the source of the light itself that gives everything form and
definition, including the shadows with which we are so familiar. This is how John
begins his extraordinary revelation not necessarily of prosaic facts, but, most
certainly, of truth. It's the same sort of truth in feeling the presence of a beloved
friend or relative in your life even though they may be distant, or even have
passed away long ago. They are not really there, but they never really leave us.
It's only nonsense if our definition of "really there" is small. John wants us to see
with new eyes and speak with a new sense of reality. He wants us to join in the
ecstatic dance of the psalmist who declares, "Let the Heavens be glad and the
earth rejoice." That's not something we'll ever hear on a real news show--even if
it's "fair and balanced."
John sees the broken world not as bathed in a kind of concrete darkness, but as
devoid of essential illumination. The darkness is a temporary state, dispelled by
the light of God present in the world in the human person of Jesus. Darkness as
a reality is defined merely as the absence of an infinitely more powerful reality:
light. Once the light is evident, darkness has
no presence of its own. So it is with God,
and the Word that was both with God and
essential to God's very definition. Without
the will of God, "the world was without form
and void." Only through the imagination of
God is there any reality to encounter. And
only in the presence of the Divine Light, Je-
sus, can we truly see it.
P
RAYER
Thank you, Lord, for a whole Octave of Your
Christmas coming. See You again next year!
_______