Those of us who have gone into the deep recesses of a cave have perhaps sensually experienced something of the intensity of darkness. Many times cave tour guides will gather a group together and extinguish all lights so that the experience of darkness can be felt. There is a silence that is palpable. There is nothing that can be seen with the eyes – not even your hand directly in front of your face. It is a bit unnerving, but at the same time fascinating and even somewhat calming. The air is different. My experience is that it is not entirely frightening, but mysteriously curious with a hint of something inchoate attempting to express itself. Of course, there is the anticipation of when the dark experiment will end and sight will again be granted by light beams from a flashlight. However, just before the light returns, there is a wonderment as to whether everything will appear as it did before the light was extinguished. Will I recognize the images as that what I had seen before or will they somehow be different now?
From the last book of the bible, we hear today the opening lines of Revelation (Rv 1:1-4; 2:1-5 ):
“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to show his servants what must happen soon. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who gives witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ by reporting what he saw.”
John, the evangelist, begins the description of what he saw as a way of expressing what God revealed to him. Many have tried to decipher and offer “explanations” of some of the odd imagery that we hear in the Book of Revelation, but I think we sometimes can get lost in these “interpretations.” We fail to allow ourselves to take advantage of perhaps the more fundamental and indeed life-giving messages in Revelation, which focus on hopeful endurance and the promise of unity when we truly live in Christ. Inasmuch as the book seems to be a report of what John “saw,” I wonder if it also hints of that which we don’t “see.”
In John’s revelation, he says quite clearly:
“…you have lost the love you had at first. Realize how far you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”’”
Seemingly “fire and brimstone,” this is perhaps more a “state of the communion” of the Body of Christ. Love, as supreme, has been replaced by other things. The “love” that we had “at first” has fallen away. The image is that the “lampstand” will be removed if we don’t return to love. But perhaps, it is we who have removed the lampstand, covered the light of love, and chosen a false “light” – a type of darkness that blinds us from the Heart of Love in the Body of Christ.
The older I get the more I see how much I don’t “see.” It’s almost as if the more I become aware, the more I realize how little I “know” about the world, the universe, and perhaps most importantly, other people. Those closest to me in my life are indeed wonderful mysteries that delight, baffle, and sometimes aggravate me. Thankfully, more often than not it is the delightful aspects of the mysteries of those around me that surface. In all of this, I believe our lives include as many, if not more, “darker shades” than outstanding palettes of brightness. Or maybe that itself is a failure in description. It appears that we need light to see shade and shadows. And conversely, the brilliance of light needs the darkness in order to show itself. Unfortunately, we tend to demonize darkness without letting it speak to us, in its own time. We don’t want to sit in the cave with patient wonderment, before quickly reacting to a loss of vision and familiarity.
Luke tells us in today’s Gospel (Lk 18:35-43):
As Jesus approached Jericho a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging, and hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” He shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!”
How many “blind” people do we hear about in the scriptures? It seems to be one of the major “themes” in Jesus’ mission. In today’s Gospel, it is a blind man, who is also a “beggar.” He hears all the commotion going on around him, and asks what was going on. Upon finding out that it was Jesus, the blind beggar’s response was to take full advantage of this. He begins shouting out that Jesus notice him. As the scripture passage goes, the others in the crowd try to hush the man up, but he insists:
“Then Jesus stopped and ordered that he be brought to him; and when he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He replied, “Lord, please let me see.” Jesus told him, “Have sight; your faith has saved you.” He immediately received his sight”
I think it’s true to say that we are all born blind. Maybe that is one of the reasons the Scriptures speak so much about it. We like to report, like John, the evangelist, on all the things the Lord has “revealed” to us, all those things that we feel we see so clearly. But I’m not sure that we don’t venture far from humility sometimes in our self-assessment of what we consider to be so clear. I’m not talking about a lack of confidence and conviction hear, but perhaps a more-than-healthy estimate of our own understanding of the world and people.
We sometimes choose blindness in a negative sense. This is a form of ignorance. Sometimes we are called to become “blind,” as a way of breaking out of a fixed way of “seeing,” that can be blindness in a very positive sense, because it ultimately involves a new way of “seeing.” We call this repentance, redemption and transformation.
The question is posed to all of us,” What do you want me to do for you?”
Our response is all important because it will be the measure with which we allow ourselves to be transformed by the love and healing that we are offered by God in Christ, and ultimately THROUGH each other. Could this be what Jesus means when he says “Have sight, your faith has saved you?” Could our vulnerability and willingness to trust, in darkness many times, be one way of looking at “having faith?”
“Lord, please let me see.” Even if it means I must sit in the darkness for a while, not being able to see the hand in front of my face. When “sight” is gone, other senses become more acutely aware. What can I feel in the darkness? Who can I find in the darkness? Who is with me in the darkness? What can be revealed in uncertainty? What or Who can help me move without fear of falling when I cannot see clearly?
This is the beauty of “blind revelation.” As Helen Keller so eloquently reveals:
“Once I knew only darkness and stillness… my life was without past or future… but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.”
Peace
Thomas