God saw that the light was good.
God sees the light rather than merely seeing by it. What mystery in such regarding? It’s certainly not the way we normally speak of seeing the light.
At Shaw’s Corner, the house where George Bernard Shaw lived and wrote, there’s a hut in the back garden set upon a revolving platform so that the writer could follow the sun’s daily arc as he wrote. Seeing by the light the better to find it. The case for light is perhaps obvious, and quite beautifully portrayed in T S Eliot’s Choruses from ‘The Rock’ (X).
We’ve already seen that God is Word before ever a word is spoken. So too with light.
This is what we heard from him, and the message that we are announcing to you: God is light; there is no darkness in him at all. (1 John 1:5)
The light spoken forth comes from the God who is light: created light from Uncreated Light. This is further extrapolated in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed to describe the trinitarian relationship between Father and Son – Light from Light.
Before we’re all blinded by the light, I’d like to present a case for the darkness. Of course, with everything happening in the world at present one might feel the darkness already has more than enough representation. But I have a different darkness in mind.
Light and dark are, of course, as much image and analogy as physical realities. From a psychological and evolutionary point of view it isn’t hard to see why the light illuminating the hidden predator would be preferred to the darkness concealing it. Still, the story of saving light often has far more dramatic power for the fireside bard when all around thick night presses in. Nonetheless, the standard is: light equals clarity equals truth, goodness and beauty; darkness equals confusion equals falsehood, evil and ugliness. This is certainly the prevailing imagery of Christianity and of much epic storytelling.
Tolkien’s brilliant The Lord of the Rings is a good illustration. There’s a Shadow in the land and Gandalf the Grey senses a return of the Dark Days, fearing it as the ‘Shadow of the Past’ (Book I, Chapter II). Soon his very worst fears are realised with the establishing of the Land of the Shadow (VI:II) behind the Black Gate (V:X) and the Dark Lord come again in his Dark Tower and with the despatching of his Black Riders. After the long ‘Journey in the Dark’ (II:IV) of Moria, Gandalf encounters the entity of destiny described as ‘fiery shadow’ and falls into the abyss ‘beyond light and knowledge’ (III:IV). Later, Galadriel states that a grey mist veils him from her sight and Aragorn informs her that he’s fallen ‘into shadow’ (II:VI).
Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel are described as being clad wholly in white and after his trial of strength with the Balrog, Gandalf himself returns as the White Rider (III:V). And this is without even mentioning the White Tree and White Tower in the White City of Gondor.
Only occasionally does image work against type. The entombing fog on the Barrow Downs is described as ‘thick, cold and white’, the fell Wight’s eyes are ‘lit with a pale light’ and the deathly hobbits all ‘clad in white’ (I:VIII). Most notably here, the good shadowing trees of Lothlórien hide the company from pursuing orcs (II:VI).
For there is such a thing as sacred shadow or darkness celebrated in the Christian tradition. In fact, there’s a whole day in the liturgical calendar that used to be called Black Saturday. It commemorates Jesus’s body lying in the darkness of the tomb and the descent of his soul into the shadow realms of the dead. It’s a stripped time of stillness and extinguished flames; a very different silent and holy night. But it’s a tremendous celebration nonetheless, even if ultimately outshone by the blaze of the Resurrection.
Its understated story tells of the liberation of the long hankering faithful, all the great heroes and heroines of old whose many days were hung with messianic hope. As prefigured in so many mythologies, Jesus descends into the underworld and in so doing makes all darkness sacred. Tolkien, of course, has his own pale echo of this Harrowing of Hell in Aragorn seeking out the Oath-breakers, exceptionally rendered in the film version. Furthermore, this insight forms a significant strand in the profound theological collaboration between Adrienne von Speyr and Hans Urs von Balthasar, admirably expressed in the latter’s work Theodramatik (God-drama).
With Genesis One, we see the light and give thanks for its goodness. Yet, we are also called to celebrate the truth that darkness shimmers with God’s abiding presence. Let’s allow our stories to sing the song of sacred shadow.
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High,
who abides in the shadow of the Almighty,
will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress;
my God, in whom I trust.” (Psalms 90/1:1-2)
Header photo: Patrick Hendry, Unsplash