Spiritual Hiccups - Distinguishing Light from Darkness

The Daily Lectionary would have great difficulty if it tried to pick readings for Advent that all pointed toward Christmas.  Especially when it comes to the gospels, there just isn't that much material.  Neither Mark nor John bother to tell of Jesus' birth.  Mark's opening verses, today's gospel, begin abruptly with, The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, "See, I am sending my  messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of  one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make  his paths straight,'" John the baptizer appeared in the  wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of  sins.

In Mark, the beginning of the good news is John who baptizes people and calls them to repentance. The word repent has taken on connotations of conversion and swearing off one's previous life, but the word means more that confessing one's sin. It is about turning, about moving in a direction appropriate to the new day that comes in Jesus. Preparing is about starting to live now by the ways of God's coming rule.

Over the past six months, I have come to rely on Father Richard Rohr's daily meditations to get my day off to a good start. In his meditation this morning, Rohr speaks of our need for a wisdom that can "name the darkness as darkness and the Light as light," our need to reject a pie-in-the-sky attitude that doesn't see the darkness, but without allowing our view of the darkness to obscure the "more foundational Light." Between these two poles lies true Christian wisdom that lets us "wait and work with hope inside of the darkness—while never doubting the Light that God always is—and that we are too (Matthew 5:14). That is the narrow birth canal of God into the world—through the darkness and into an ever greater Light." (Click to read Rohr's meditation.)

I think John's call of repentance invites us to do something very similar.  It calls us to turn away from the darkness in the world, to work against that darkness in the certainty and hope of the light that overcomes the darkness.  It is about a willingness to both name the darkness and to live in ways that defy its power.  This sort of repentance prepares for God's rule by refusing to simply go along with the "ways of the world," by living instead by the ways of God's coming day, a way of life clearly shown in the life of Jesus.

The beginning of good news is to get ready for something other than how things are.  It is to see the darkness in all its ugliness, but to reject its power and live at odds with it.  This is the hopeful realism* of our new life in Christ, a realism that clearly sees the world's darkness, but lives and works with confidence that the Light still shines in the darkness, and Light will triumph over darkness.

*I borrowed this term from Doug Ottati's book of the same name.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.