Monday, June 27, 2022

Living in Darkness

 

Monday, June 27, 2022

Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment for you; rather it is an old one you have had from the very beginning.  This old commandment—to love one another—is the same message you heard before.  Yet it is also new.  Jesus lived the truth of this commandment, and you also are living it.  For the darkness is disappearing, and the true light is already shining.  If anyone claims, “I am living in the light,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is still living in darkness.  Anyone who loves a fellow believer is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble.  But anyone who hates a fellow believer is still living and walking in darkness.  Such a person does not know the way to go, having been blinded by the darkness.  1 John 2:7-11

As John the Apostle leaned against Jesus in the upper room the night before the Lord was crucified, he could probably sense the beating of Jesus’ heart.  As Jesus broke the bread that heart may have pounded a little more. The specter of a splintered and sin-stained cross, cast dark shadows on this Shabbat meal, normally a sacred celebration of rest and freedom.  This night, the meal saddened the carpenter’s joy.  That sadness in joy is how God’s kind of love puts one’s cares, wishes, preferences, and hopes off to the side, and on-hold, in favor of the needs of others.  Jesus knew the only sacrifice adequate to overcome our sins was running through his human veins.  The cup was deep and dry, and drinking all of it meant becoming sin for us.  This He was willing to do, but the knowledge of necessity did not make it easier to bear.  He wanted to pass the cup.  But the need, our forgiveness, was too great, and he wouldn’t leave us helpless.

In the decades that followed, John understood and recalled that moment often.  As he ate the bread and drank the cup, remembering the sacrifice of Christ, John would have connected this love-gift as being the heart of what God wants for all of his children – not just to remember in a ritual, but pass on in relationship.  This is why John wrote…to remind all of us that hating is living in darkness, but giving ourselves for the good of others is sharing the light of dawn in a dark place.

The tribe in which I find myself these days (so-called United Methodists) has been stumbling around in the dark for some time.  In attempting to find a way forward, opposing viewpoints of where the light is to be found has created a shadowy uncertainty, where God’s children see their church siblings as being illegitimate pretenders in the Kingdom.  Accusations of hate flow from either side, and the heart of Christ is pounding once again.

I possess little in the way of offering personal wisdom for organizational salvation for either side of the conflict.  However, I recognize enough of the image John gave us of living in darkness, to know our only possibility of shaking loose of this lethal dislike and distrusting shadow covering the land is repentance, turning once again to following Jesus, letting go of what seems important in this world, and doing the best for the other.

After all, wasn’t that the new/old commandment?

For You Today

In any tribe, work, play, family, church, or government, there are those who make it tough to hang around.  I believe that describes 100% of us.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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For other posts on this topic:  Old Friends and Where LOVE and TRUTH Meet

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©   

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