Do Not Fear the Dark: A Good Friday and Triduum Meditation

Like many Good Friday services, the imagery tends to focus on the dying of the Light as the Church remembers our Lord’s tortuous and deadly path to Calvary.  In the opening chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus is rightly identified as the Light and Life of all men, and throughout John’s New Testament testimony, the Light of Christ is a counterpoint to the darkness of the world.  Through the Incarnation, God entered the darkness of this world by taking our human nature upon Himself in the Person of His Son, so that in the Person of His Son, He might vanquish the darkness forever.  It was the people of the world sitting in crippling darkness who saw His great Light, and it is that Light which shall pierce the veil of death by Resurrection on Easter Day.

 

There are many rational reasons that people seem afraid of the dark.  From a physical perspective, the eye cannot see what lurks in the darkness, and both reason and imagination speculate on the motives of what dwells there.  In nature, many predators hunt in the darkness, and people in the wilds build fires to push back the darkness and keep those creatures at bay.  Theologically, it is God who reveals Himself as the Light of the World which no darkness can overcome, and that in God there is no darkness at all.  In this revelation is the acknowledgment that those who dwell in spiritual darkness are enemies of God—either fallen men, or depraved demons—who at the instigation of Satan prowl about the world seeking souls to devour.  In our natural and fallen state, all people have an understandable aversion to the darkness, because somewhere deep down, all people know that unlike the Light which brings life in the fellowship of God, the darkness brings only death and separation from Him.  Deep down, all people know that somewhere in the outer darkness there is weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth only echoed in this world’s mournful funeral laments, where all hope is lost and the nefarious enemies of mankind wreak hellish havoc upon lost souls forever.

 

There are real enemies in the darkness, and they are greater than the greatest of mortals.  Therefore it is something wonderful and peculiar that our Lord walked resolutely into that darkness, without fear or dread.  Certainly Jesus expressed anguish in His humanity while praying for this awful cup to pass from Him, yet submitted His human will to the Divine Will so that He could accomplish the salvation of the world.  It is Jesus who stepped into the darkness for us, and not timidly as if hoping to avoid its worst denizens—but rather directly into the gaping maw of death and hell itself.  There, beyond the brutal tortures of Romans and the betrayals of Jewish authorities, where the darkness moved in to extinguish the Light of Jesus’ life, His Words echoed into the darkness like a thundering from the heart of Creation:  It is finished!  Jesus’ life poured out upon the Cross, His soul descended to the place of the dead where all fallen men must go, but not as a victim or prisoner.  There, in the deepest, darkest stronghold of Satan, Jesus’ Light penetrated and repudiated every foul and twisted creature, and loosed the bonds which held all those who awaited His coming from the dawn of time.  Jesus entered the darkness where our greatest enemies plotted the demise of mankind, so that He might shatter the darkness and put all evil to flight.

 

What death, hell, and the devil had hoped to achieve by swallowing up the Lord of Life, they lost by being themselves swallowed up in His Vicarious Atonement and Resurrection.  The vanity of Lucifer’s boast to be like the Most High was eviscerated before the all the witnesses of the whole created universe, when his impotent strike upon Jesus amounted to a bruise upon His omnipotent heel, which in turn came down to crushed his infernal head.  No longer were the great enemies of mankind armed with weapons that easily fell human beings who bore the image of God, but now were disarmed and put to flight by the Immortal and Eternal Word.  Jesus not only conquered our enemies who dwelt in the darkness, but after His Resurrection, He gave the Light, Spirit, and Power of His Word to His people, that they might never fear the darkness again.  Once victims without hope before the yawning chasm of death, now all those who abide in Jesus by grace through faith are victors through His Victory, with the crown of eternal life placed upon their brow.  The Light which man had lost in his fall has been restored by Jesus Christ, who has become the Light and Life of all those who put their trust in Him.

 

So now we walk with our Savior as He treads the path of darkness and death, knowing that His victory is eternal and sure.  No more do the saints need fear the darkness of sin, death, hell, and devil, because the Lord of Life has won for us the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation from every evil under heaven.  And not only have we no need to fear the darkness, but we are called and sent into that darkness with the Light of Jesus’ Word, that the straggling denizens of darkness who presume upon the world their dark designs, might be put to flight once more.  This world does not belong to the darkness, for the Lord of Glory has won it back to Himself through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  What man had lost, God has regained and given to us as the riches of His grace, so that no man might fear the darkness ever again, ensconced forever by Baptism in His marvelous Light.  Gird up the loins of your mind and make strong the weak knees, so that we might walk all the more boldly with our Lord into the darkness, and emerge with Him in the incomprehensible Light of that glorious Easter morn.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.