A Mystery of Light
There is no antagonism between prayer in time and the unchangeable will of God in eternity, for Christ is the bridge, the solution of all problems, the peaceful light in our darkness. He reveals prayer as a mystery, but a mystery of light, dark by excess of brightness. Jesus is the archetype of prayer. We are made the sons of God in Him, and our great High Priest enables us to enter with Him into the Holy of Holies. We pray because Christ is in us, and the Father is in Christ.
—The Lord’s Prayer, pg. 13 (Adolph Saphir)
When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
—John 17
…our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache.
And this brings me to the other sense of glory—glory as brightness, splendour, luminosity. We are to shine as the sun, we are to be given the Morning Star. I think I begin to see what it means. In one way, of course, God has given us the Morning Star already: you can go and enjoy the gift on many fine mornings if you get up early enough. What more, you may ask, do we want? Ah, but we want so much more—something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.
…
At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in. When human souls have become as perfect in voluntary obedience as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then they will put on its glory, or rather that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch. For you must not think that I am putting forward any heathen fancy of being absorbed into Nature. Nature is mortal; we shall outlive her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image, the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites me to use. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendour which she fitfully reflects.
And in there, in beyond Nature, we shall eat of the tree of life. At present, if we are reborn in Christ, the spirit in us lives directly on God; but the mind, and still more the body, receives life from Him at a thousand removes—through our ancestors, through our food, through the elements. The faint, far-off results of those energies which God’s creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the worlds are what we now call physical pleasures; and even thus filtered, they are too much for our present management. What would it be to taste at the fountain-head that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating? Yet that, I believe, is what lies before us. The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy. As St. Augustine said, the rapture of the saved soul will “flow over” into the glorified body. In the light of our present specialized and depraved appetites we cannot imagine this torrens voluptatis, and I warn everyone seriously not to try. But it must be mentioned, to drive out thoughts even more misleading—thoughts that what is saved is a mere ghost, or that the risen body lives in numb insensibility. The body was made for the Lord, and these dismal fancies are wide of the mark.
—The Weight of Glory (C.S. Lewis)
O, beloved.
These words…
Christ…is the peaceful light in our darkness. He reveals prayer as a mystery, but a mystery of light, dark by excess of brightness.
…they are beautiful, are they not? (tender)
This ‘mystery of light’…isn’t this such a dazzling, magnificent truth? We’re…surrounded by mystery in this life—aye—and yet, if we’re honest, it’s a…bewildered sort of euphoria, if perceived rightly.
(pondering) I think…if we could somehow distill it down to a single concept, it might be something like this: our sinful nature, by default, distorts truth—we spew forth lies of what we call ‘love’—this is, I think, rightly understood to be ‘darkness’; God, in infinite grace and mercy, gives us His Words, His Words of Light, He speaks His story—History—and slowly but surely, over time, His Spirit redeems us and we are resurrected from darkness to Light, from our own befuddled darkness of ‘understanding’ to divine Love. What a perplexing mystery this is—this mystery of coming to know true Love, coming to know God as Love!
Speaking of ‘mystery’—this makes me think of Colossians 2:2:
…that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ.
Christ is God’s mystery. (amazed) O, what depths of riches can be found in this phrase! What marvelous wonders! What glorious truths! O, how I long to be ‘knit Together in love’—and this is the way by which we reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and knowledge of God’s mystery—Christ Himself?! (in awe) O, Father! Yes. Please. (fervent, hopeful) What breathtaking splendor! What radiance, and glory! O, my soul…be still. (reverent) O, God, your brilliance…it leaves me dazed and confused! (giddy) Your effulgence, it’s…blinding, O Lord! Yes…(pondering)—‘blinding’…
dark by excess of brightness.
So much of life here—we can’t make any sense of it. We’re…so…used to darkness—fear and shame, yes beloved? (gentle) But this…‘excess’ of brightness! it has us all stunned, discombobulated, and confounded in the most resplendent of ways! Does it not? It…all seems…too lovely, too wonderful.
It’s like…(pondering, trying to find the right analogy)…a poor little bat—let’s call him ‘Dank’, no…(pondering) ‘Dismal Dank’, yes that will do quite nicely. (satisfied) Dismal Dank, he’s…nocturnal and he’s only accustomed to the dark. He feels safest there—he feels no need for light, no, not really. (humph, wings crossed, refractory) He’s equipped with echolocation—“thank you very much”—he can probe around in the dark just fine, or so he thinks. What Dismal Dank doesn’t realize is that bats have eyes just like humans and bats can see just as well as humans can with their eyes—or so the internet says! (contemplative) And…in jeopardy of taking this analogy too far—let’s just see how far we can take it, shall we? (playful)—the abode Dismal Dank occupies (pauses to clarify something: Dismal Dank calls it his ‘abode’ but when he’s feeling particularly snooty, he refers to it as his ‘castle’ but we all know quite well the space he occupies can simply be stated as a ‘cleft in a rock’) is quite small. Moreover, Dismal Dank’s wings have become derelict, verily so. (sorrowful) For he’s never had the space, the opportunity, the freedom to flap his wings long enough to feel the wind tickling his wing membranes. Dismal Dank is… well…quite dismal. (sigh) One Day, a most terrifying thing happened—yes (pauses for dramatic effect)—a great and most disturbing influence disrupted his regularly scheduled, and most sacred time of what he considered most precious to him: the self acclaimed and most cherished arrangement—one might even call it a relished ritual of sorts—his harbored occasion to ‘lick his wounds’ so to speak, to lament and fully admire and cultivate all of his acquired self pity—it was a particularly treasured time for Dismal Dank, a moment to do something worth doing, to actualize some good ol’ fashion brooding. But…just when he was about to review, for the umpteenth time, his miseries again—delightedly, of course—just for good measure, he was blinded by some mysterious thing: light. This light, it was…very…peculiar to him. (perplexed) It…seemed quite strange; it allowed him to…see, with his eyes! (slightly disgruntled, perturbed) Dismal Dank did not respond with cheerful gratitude—no. This challenged everything he’d come to know, everything he’d learned, everything he prided himself on. He’d become especially well known for his advanced and most impressive echolocation abilities amongst other bats. He was entirely self reliant, you see? Now…(pauses) Gentle reader—beloved, may I have a word with you please, alone? Shh. (said in a hushed tone) As a bystander, observing this analogy, perhaps you’re questioning Dismal Dank’s wit—is it possible to think he’s truly this…dense? This…naive? Has he not the slightest clue as to all the wonders, all the benefits, all the mysterious blessings of light?! Quiet your spirit, please. Listen. (gentle) You may not be so very different from him, O child of God. Let us consider Together a bit more how things pan out for this fella, shall we? Yes? Good. Yes, where were we now? (ahem) Oh yes…Dismal Dank’s predicament and the most mysterious light, absorbing all his darkness, totally disrupting all that he’s come to know and love—yes. Can we…sympathize with him for a brief moment, please? Let us state the fact of the matter: we may as well come right out and say it for what it is. There’s no use in ‘beating around the bush’ as they say. The truth is this: Dismal Dank no longer has any use of his familiar and, might I add, perfectly functional echolocation anymore. Not with light. Alas. What good is it to the bat with eyes and light!? (deep sigh) It’s almost as if…he’ll need to learn how to properly use depth perception of objects all over again! (exasperated) Or…could he continue to use echolocation in the light, still? (he: hopeful) And so it was, at first—Dismal Dank waged war against this mysterious light in utter defiance, daily, hourly, moment…by…painful moment. He would shut his eyes tight, he’d try and flap his wings and soar out in the open…but without objects close at hand (you may be eager in correcting me—thinking I should have used a more astutely accurate term ‘wing’ for this synecdoche, however, I’d like to take this moment to gently make it known that the Greek word for bat is χείρπτερόν and I’ll have you know that χείρ / cheir, is a feminine noun for ‘hand’ and πτερόν / pteron, means ‘feather’ or ‘wing’) his echolocation didn’t…work quite so well and he’d go smack dab into ‘this’ tree or ‘that’ one. It…was the most frustrating thing he’d ever encountered. In fact, his ‘brooding episodes’ evolved—they blossomed into multi-day escapades until he eventually collapsed in weariness of his own self-loathing. (deep sigh) Truly, it was an even more miserable experience than before—this appearance of ‘light’, at first. But…over time, he…depended on echolocation less and less, he learned to use his eyes more; he learned to trust the light. His depth perception, using his eyes, got better too! Of course, he still has a relapse every now and then, where he…ashamedly tries to go back to the old way of things—he sometimes slips back into using echolocation, as if he were still in the dark. But now that he’s basking in the light—this glorious but mysterious light—there’s no need. No sir. Oh! One final thing, I should mention, I almost forgot. Dismal Dank, if you go looking for him, you won’t find him. (gentle) Three reasons:
He’s an entirely fictitious creature. So…there’s that. (playful)
He’s usually off exploring, soaring high in the sky (bats are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight…I could go on and explain how their anatomy allows for this, but…I’ll save that for another day).
Nobody calls him Dismal Dank anymore. His friends simply call him ‘Sunny.’
Beloved? (gentle) Do you see?
We’re an awful lot like Dismal Dank. We…grope around in the dark when we try and live and make sense of things on our own.
He graciously, mysteriously—Light: Love—shines upon us with the full splendor of His glory. And we…kick and scream, in part, because we’re still learning how to use our eyes of faith instead of our physical eyes, and ears, and touch, and feelings, and mind, and heart—all complex and intricately sophisticated mechanisms of our own ‘echolocation’ so to speak. It…doesn’t…work so well, though, out in the open, as we soar way up high in the sky, as we try and commune with our King, as we cry out to Him in prayer. (gentle) I hope…I trust, some Day, He’ll redeem and restore our God-given, yet corrupted (for now) ‘echolocation’—all our natural senses (Romans: 8:21). But, until Then, let’s rely on it sparingly, yes? (gentle) Let’s try and learn, re-learn how to properly use depth perception—how to navigate all the glorious mysteries of this life and the next using these new-found ‘eyes of faith’, for now with His light—this mysterious Light—we can truly see.
Tis’ a mystery of Light—indeed—but it is good.