'And it was night': endless love in the darkness
John 13:1-2, 30
“The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him.”
As Jesus and the disciples gathered for the Last Supper, the darkness was gathering. It was, already, present in that upper room - and not only in the heart of Judas.
At supper, Jesus would tell a boastful Peter, so sure of the strength of his faith, that he would, instead, betray Jesus that very night.
Jesus tells the other disciples that they will scatter, leaving him alone, abandoned.
The writer of the Fourth Gospel powerfully captures this sense of gathering darkness in describing Judas leaving the upper room to undertake his act of betrayal:
“He immediately went out. And it was night”.
In our parish Lent book, Lent with the Beloved Disciple, Michael Marshall says, “turning his back on Jesus, the light of the world, [Judas] walked into the darkness” [1].
They all walked into the darkness: Judas, Peter, the other disciples. All alike turned from the One who is the Light, entering into the cold darkness.
“And it was night.”
The thick darkness will have willing allies in the hours to come: the religious authorities, fearful of Jesus, condemning him; the religious police, maltreating Jesus; Pilate, the worldly, cynical political operator, colluding with injustice to further his ambitions; the Roman soldiers, casually torturing an innocent man; the crowd, pitiless and unmoved by the sight of Jesus bloodied and abandoned.
“And it was night.”
But, One has entered willingly into this night, this darkness. The One of whom John’s Gospel says at its outset, “in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it”.
Jesus enters into the thick, deep darkness of a world confused and lost, cynical and cruel, broken and uncertain, unjust and unforgiving.
“And it was night.” It is the world you and I know. The world scarred by brutal conflicts and by harsh prejudices. The world in which our lives are too often overshadowed by our fears and resentments, our selfishness and pride. The world in which illness and death is a reality, with the pain and heartbreak this brings.
It is into this night, this darkness that Jesus comes, on this night in which he is betrayed and handed over unto suffering and death.
There is a famous painting by the 17th century Dutch artist Gerard van Honthorst, entitled ‘Christ before the high priest’. The scene is one of gloom and darkness. The high priest is seated at a desk, an inquisitor, sure of his authority. Christ the prisoner stands before him, being interrogated, silent, condemnation inevitable. A single candle is on the desk, casting but a little light. For this is the hour of darkness.
In the very midst of the darkness is Our Lord. And the darkness will only intensify as the hours go by and we enter into that first Good Friday. The darkness of torture, suffering, crucifixion, death … and then the final darkness, the darkness of the tomb.
The liturgy of Maundy Thursday captures something of this when, as the service ends this evening, the lights are dimmed, our parish church enters into darkness, and the altar is stripped as the choir chant Psalm 22, the psalm which Our Lord invoked upon the Cross.
The sanctuary is left dark, cold, bare - a sign of the darkness into which Christ willingly entered, for us, for all.
Our Gospel reading on this night of darkness opens with these words: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end”.
What is it we encounter and behold this night and into Good Friday? What is it we encounter and behold in the upper room and in the garden, in the scenes of betrayal and denial, before the high priest and Pilate, in the Cross and the Tomb? What is it we encounter and behold in this night, this darkness?
“Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end”.
This night, we behold Jesus Christ as the presence and revelation of divine love in the darkest times, the darkest parts of this world, of our lives. There is no time, no place, no experience so dark that Christ is not there to be found, the presence and revelation of divine love, embracing us in mercy, restoring and renewing us as daughters and sons of our Heavenly Father.
This night Our Lord enters into the deepest darkness for us and for our salvation.
Augustine, a 5th century North African bishop and one of the greatest teachers of the faith in the Christian tradition, simply but beautifully summarises the meaning of this night: it is, he says, the night in which we behold the One “who loves us always and endlessly” [2].
Whatever times and experiences of night and darkness I, you, we know, this world knows, this night - the night in which he was betrayed - is the revelation that the love of God in Christ is “always and endlessly” present with us and for us, bringing us over from darkness to light, from death to life, from the gloomy shades of night to the morning of resurrection.
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