Light in a Dark World

We live most of our life in a bubble, and we find ourselves blissfully ignorant of the horrors that happen around the world daily. Some of it reaches the news. Maybe you can name a few of the ongoing conflicts in the world, but how many more there are! Even the biggest headlines seem to quickly fade out of mind. 

Few people are aware of the 12-month blockade of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, which was labelled an attempted “genocide by starvation” and was only ended when 100,000 people left their homes to become refugees. Or of the recent conflict in Ethiopia, which in terms of body count, has been dubbed “the worst war of the 21^st century”. And besides conflicts, what other wicked imaginations of the human heart are transpiring daily? 

People talk about how depressing the news can be at times. How it focuses on the bad things and maybe that’s a good reason to avoid it. Yet, the news covers only a small fraction of the evil and suffering that are constantly at work in our broken world. But “the eyes of the Lord are in every place” and “God is angry with the wicked every day”.

Sometimes, the darkness pushes its way into our path, so that we can no longer ignore it. The past few weeks in the UK have brought forcefully before us the sheer capacity of man’s evil. Not only in the cruel and maniacal taking of three young girl’s lives, but in the subsequent flood of hateful and unjust anger – a twisted love for violence and destruction. I heard one interviewee use the term “pogrom” to describe some of the gatherings we’ve seen in recent days. Not protests. Not just riots. But pogroms. I’ve only ever heard that word used in the context of the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide. Whether he was right to call it that or not, we must ask how, in the UK in 2024, could such a description even be considered? Surely our country is better than that? Surely, we might proudly say, we are past such primitive acts of hatred?

The sad truth is that while these things shock us, if we are honest, they really shouldn’t. This is not anything new. “There is nothing new under the sun”. Whether we are thinking of political scandal, of tyranny and warmongering, of one man’s hatred of another, or even just of the subtle slanders, gossip and ill-will which manifest themselves day and daily in offices across the country, we are looking at the true nature of our world. This is the way things have always been. In every period and culture. 

I’m presently reading the annals of the Roman historian Tacitus. And as I read about the plots, the rivalries, and the conflicts of that 1^st century AD, I cannot help but feel I could just as well be reading it on BBC news today. For all our progress, humanity has not grown beyond its moral failures. For all that we have learned, humanity has really learned nothing at all. For whatever light and goodness we might see, the darkness seems only to overcloud it.

But that is why Jesus Christ is so good! 

It was said of Christ, when he was preaching in Galilee, which had known much political unrest and trouble in the preceding decades, that “The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them the light has dawned”. Christ shows what true goodness means. He is the good man. 

Christ brought with him a taste of the kingdom of God in its perfect peace and justice. He was “full of grace and truth”. He did not ignore sin, and yet with wisdom he knew how to deal with it appropriately. He dealt sternly with the hard hearts of the hypocrites, and yet was gentle with the contrite sinners who sought his mercy. He acted strongly against the extortion that was taking place in the temple, and yet he spoke softly with the woman caught in the act of adultery when he told her to “go and sin no more”. Even as his enemies awaited their opportunity to destroy him, he did not seek vengeance, but he wept as he beheld the city of Jerusalem. Christ was pure in his deeds and speech. 

When I read the gospels, I am compelled by this man, because I see in him a quality of character that I have not found anywhere else. I find light in this dark world. And I rejoice in one whom the darkness could not overcome. Not by tempting him, and not even by killing him. 

This is the experience of Christians, for we have “tasted that the Lord is good”. We have found something better in Christ than in the world and so we desire to know more of his goodness and to emulate it. 

Christ knew himself what he was bringing into this world. He could say “learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls”. That is what Christ offers. Rest! Rest from all the evil. Rest from the darkness that surrounds us. And, lest we forget, rest from the darkness within us also.