Come Receive the Light: A Reflection on John 1:1-17

Hierodeacon Innocent
Monastery of St. John

The beginning of the gospel of John, read on Pascha night, is one of the most powerful Sunday gospel lessons of the entire year. The Church gives us this most joyous message of light and hope at this poignant moment when our hearts and minds have been prepared by the fasting, prayer, and repentance of Great Lent. At this unique moment, in the early morning hours, though the body is weary, the heart is receptive and the eye of the soul can “listen to the holy gospel” in a way that goes beyond mere listening with the ear.

It is good to reflect on the meaning of this passage even now because it inaugurates the whole Paschal season. We come away from the Paschal vigil with the triumphal refrain on our lips: “Christ is risen.” Indeed, this is the truest, most joyous phrase we can ever say. Yet there is much more. It is true that Pascha is about Christ’s harrowing of Hell and the defeat of Death through His death and resurrection. But Pascha is also about the culmination of Christ’s work, the total completion of what He came to earth to accomplish. Many themes are introduced in this gospel reading, but, for me, these themes stand out most clearly: Christ, the Word, is life itself. This life is the source of the true light. It is only in this light that we can see anything. God sent John the Baptist (and others as well, I would add) to point us to the light. When we truly see, then we will believe. As this light of faith grows in us, we “come to believe.” This belief is the work that God calls everyone to do.

At St. John’s Monastery, as in many parishes, we gather in church just before midnight, and after the midnight office is concluded, every light, candle, and lampada is extinguished. We even go so far as to cover the emergency exit sign with aluminum foil and masking tape. At that moment in the church, the darkness is absolute. You can’t even see your hand in front of your face. Somewhere in the altar, a flame is kindled. The priest emerges with this light inviting us to “come receive the light.” Candles in hand, flame touching flame, within moments the church, once pitch dark, is filled with the soft glow of candlelight. We reenact the coming of the true light into the world. We were blind in the darkness of sin and ignorance, but the crucified, buried, and resurrected Christ has pierced the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

We need to realize that without God, we live in total darkness. To make matters worse, this darkness gradually blinds us. During the weekdays of Lent, we read the Old Testament. We join the catechumens in anticipating the coming of the Messiah through the prophecies of Isaiah and the typology of Genesis. We symbolically return to the time when all humanity lived in expectation of the coming of Christ. Only when we really recognize him, only when his light is most perfectly revealed through his crucifixion, burial, and resurrection does it all make sense. Only then do we know what love is. Only then is there meaning for the entire creation. Only then is the absurdity of our existence transformed into deepest meaning when we realize that our life is really Christ’s. All at once, when this light begins to enter our hearts, it all makes sense. Everything is different. We are reborn as children of God.

Over and over in the Gospel of John, we are called to believe. “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:29). Are we being asked to sit down, think really hard, and believe that Jesus is Lord by sheer force of brain waves? No. Then what are we being asked to do? I find no explicit answer to this question, but this gospel passage hints at what we are asked to do through the person of John the Baptist. “[John the Baptist] came to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him” (John 1:7). How did John testify to the light? Firstly, he recognized Jesus as the Lamb of God and pointed him out to those around him. Secondly, he called everyone to repent because the Kingdom of God was at hand. We learn from this that God is revealed to us by the testimony of others. We are not alone in the spiritual life. John the Baptist is there to tell us that Jesus is the Messiah. Other people God sends us in our life point us to Christ. God gives us every chance to come to believe. He does not leave it up to our own efforts. The Old Testament verse quoted so often by monastics comes to mind, “Ask your father, and he will inform you; your elders, and they will tell you” (Deut. 32:7). Christ had his Forerunner, so we could be prepared for Him, and could believe through him. God sends particular people into our lives as forerunners who will point us to Christ.

The whole life message of John the Baptist could be summed up in one word: “Repent!” We come to believe only as we repent of our sins and let go of evil. Later on in the gospel of John we read that people did not believe in the name of the Son of God because they “loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). To the degree that we cling to evil, we can expect our perception of reality to be distorted and our senseless minds to be darkened (Rom. 1:21). The light of Christ is available to everyone. How do we believe through John the Baptist? We heed those God sends us to point us to the light. We repent of our evil deeds and are thus able to see the light and come to believe.

Belief is not instantaneous. It is a process. We each are given a certain measure of faith. If we use that faith, the light will grow, we will see more clearly, and, by the grace of God, our belief will become stronger. In the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible that I use for my daily Bible reading, the expression for the continuing action of believing is “come to believe.” In John 6:69 the Apostle Peter exclaims, “We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” This is a great assurance for two reasons: Firstly, although in the gospel of John we are repeatedly commanded by our Savior to believe, we are not expected to do so all at once — “come to believe” suggests a process. Secondly, use of the title “Holy One of God” points directly to the witness of our Lenten teacher, the prophet Isaiah, who used this Messianic title most often. We, like the Apostle Peter, struggle to believe, and like him come to recognize Him through the witness of the prophets. Sometimes all we have is a tiny flicker of light, but if we heed it, that light will grow. This promise of light and hope resounds through the Old Covenant, but finds its ultimate fulfillment in the risen Christ. “But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day” (Proverbs 4:18).