“Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light,” the apostle writes. As far as metaphors are concerned, it doesn’t get more elemental than darkness and light. “Let there be light” were the first words spoken by God on the first day of creation, according to Genesis 1. Darkness and light are night and day, fundamental to the ordering of time and the rhythms of life.
“Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light,” writes the apostle, and we hear echoes of creation, echoes of life’s beginning. Ephesians seems to have been a baptismal sermon which was circulated as a letter among churches in Asia Minor. Unlike other New Testament letters, it doesn’t address the day-to-day struggles of a particular church, but rather the big-picture challenges of living a baptized life.
Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. You noticed that the apostle didn’t write, “Once you were in the darkness, but now in the Lord you are in the light.” It’s the same contrast, but apparently, for the apostle, it might invite the misunderstanding that baptism is merely a change of environments, a change of religious affiliation from one cult to another, with the identity of the person making the transition left basically untouched, like moving from one room to another, from one job to another. Baptism, this preacher wants the church to understand, is our transition to our true identity as God’s beloved children. Once you were darkness, now you are light. Earlier, the apostle wrote, “You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, … but God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us …, made us alive together with Christ.”[1] Once you were dead, now you are alive. Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Walk as children of light. Walk in ways that show who and whose you are. Let your life shine. Christ is your life. Be the light. Shine. Let the light of Christ shine in you and through you. And don’t be afraid, the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.
When you start to think about it, the fruit of the light sounds like a weird mix of metaphors, but less so when you consider that the light of Christ shines in and through the lives of human beings, who we are, what we say and do, and how we say and do—Christ wants to and does shine in and through all of it,
and all of it is fruit of the light for the harvest of light.
Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light—you are who and what you were meant to be, and it doesn’t matter if you hear yourself addressed as a person first or as a community, if you hear singular or plural, you or y’all: you are light. For many of us, Lent is a season when we take a closer look at our lives, when we ponder how fully and faithfully we’re living the life we have been given, when we wonder if we’re still trying to find out what is pleasing to the Lord or if somewhere along the way we’ve settled for what is pleasing to ourselves. It’s easy to get lost in the weeds of our known or perceived shortcomings; it’s easy to imagine the light as harsh, inescapable, and as somehow delighting in exposing our inconsistencies and contradictions; it’s easy to end up in a place of pervasive shame and guilt, stuck. The apostle warns us, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness; rather, expose them”—not to the harsh light of the relentlessly chatty and relentlessly critical voices in our minds, but to the light of grace and truth. When Paul writes, “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice,” he has the whole community of the baptized in mind. “Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” That is the light. Kindness shines in the darkness of bitterness. Compassion and forgiveness shine in the darkness of wrath and malice. That is the light.
“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us.”[2] We often treat others the way we treat ourselves, or the way we believe we deserve to be treated. Lent is a wonderful opportunity to walk intentionally under the loving gaze of God and let ourselves be loved—not for who we wish we were, but for who we are, beloved children.
At the end of today’s passage from Ephesians, Paul writes, “Therefore it says, ‘Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’“ The apostle is not quoting scripture; most scholars think the line is most likely from a baptismal hymn his initial audience would have been familiar with. “Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” It’s a lovely line, whether you hear it as a thundering wake-up call with bugle blasts, or a gentle voice whispering in your ear. Many theologians of the first centuries heard echoes of a line from Isaiah, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you”—you can hear it too, that lovely echo, across the ages, can’t you?[3]Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Arise! Shine! Be who God made you to be! However, Isaiah was also quite aware of the masters of deception: what many call light, some will call darkness. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”[4] And we know exactly what he’s talking about.
We have presenters on news programs who intentionally lie for the sake of ratings, and some of us do want somebody to tell us that evil is good; and the mob storming the capitol on January 6? Those were actually groups of patriots on a self-guided sightseeing tour. We have state legislators and a governor who call the state-sponsored denial of medical care for transgender youth, protecting our children. And after the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth reported the state’s foster care system is the worst in the nation, the administration really stepped up its efforts to turn things around—by dropping a plan to dissolve the Commission. A spokesperson for the governor’s office called the effort
another meaningful step to better serve Tennessee children by incorporating important services within child and family-serving state agencies, which includes DCS. To be clear, Tennessee is not cutting services for children or families, but rather, integrating them into state government, meaning that current services will remain intact and be relocated.
“If that’s the case,” comments the Tennessee Lookout’s Sam Stockard, “we have to wonder whether the fox will be guarding the henhouse if the commission’s work is shifted into the Department of Children’s Services, which has been falling short on the job for years.”[5]
A book for young readers comes to mind. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle was first published in 1962 and has been in print ever since. It has also faced several challenges and attempted bans: it was ranked #23 on the American Library Association’s 100 most frequently challenged books from 1990-1999, and #90 on the ALA’s list from 2000-2009.[6] Only in the last decade did the award-winning young adult novel drop from the top 100 list.[7]
A Wrinkle in Time is the story of Meg Murry, a high-school-aged girl who is transported on an adventure through time and space with her younger brother Charles and her friend Calvin to rescue her father from the evil forces that hold him prisoner on another planet. The three children learn from three celestial guides that the universe is threatened by a great evil called the Dark Thing. Several planets have already succumbed to this evil force, including Camazotz, the planet on which Meg’s father is imprisoned. On Camazotz, conformity rules, and everything is controlled by IT, a giant disembodied brain. Meg, Charles, and Calvin try to fight IT, but without success. They manage to escape, but Charles remains possessed by IT, a prisoner of Camazotz. One of the celestial guides tells Meg that she has one thing that IT does not have, and this will be her weapon against the evil. However, Meg must discover this weapon for herself. And, of course, she does: her love for her brother sets him free from IT’s clutches and he becomes himself again.
Some challengers thought the book was too religious, others, that it wasn’t religious enough; I think young readers are perfectly able to come to their own conclusions. Right around the time that L’Engle was writing A Wrinkle in Time, Dr. Martin Luther King preached, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”[8]
In 2018, A Wrinkle in Time was adapted into a motion picture by Walt Disney Pictures, directed by Ava Duvernay, and featuring Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling as Mrs. Which, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Who, the celestial guides. The movie’s promotional tagline passed on the insight of Mrs. L’Engle, Dr. King, the Sermon on the Mount, Ephesians, and Isaiah—the whole, deep, beautiful tradition: “The only way to defeat the darkness is to become the light.” So, whether you are contemplating the landscape of your heart or the world around you, let Christ shine. Be who and what you were meant to be. Be the light.
[1] Ephesians 2:1-5
[2] See Ephesians 4:31-32; 5:1-2
[3] Isaiah 60:1
[4] Isaiah 5:20
[5] https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/03/17/stockard-on-the-stump-killing-the-commission-on-children-and-youth-wont-be-easy
[6] https://bannedbooks.library.cmu.edu/madeleine-lengle-a-wrinkle-in-time-draft/
[7] https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/decade2019
[8] Strength to Love, 1963.