Dark Night

Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent A-1

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Hb 2:3; 1 Cor 4:5 The Lord will come and he will not delay. He will illumine what is hidden in darkness and reveal himself to all the nations.

Collect Grant, we pray, almighty God, that the coming solemnity of your Son may bestow healing upon us in this present life and bring us the rewards of life eternal. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: Isaiah 45:6-8.18.21-25; Psalm 85ab.10-14; Luke 7:18-23.

John’s disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’“ At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” (Luke 7:18-23)

Dark Night Luke presents us with a surprising twist in the events of our Lord’s public ministry. Luke had already given the reader wonderful information about Jesus Christ and John the Baptist in their infancies. They had been deeply connected. They were relatives, and from their very conceptions their parents had known the essence of their missions. In the visitation of Mary to her kinswoman Elizabeth, Jesus and John though yet unborn had in a sense met, and as a result John himself had been filled with the Holy Spirit while still in the womb. Luke takes the reader to the inauguration of the public ministry of each, and then there comes the meeting between Jesus and John at the river Jordan. Taking his part with sinners, though himself sinless, Jesus is baptized. His identity is announced from heaven and the Holy Spirit comes upon him. He is the Messiah and the beloved Son of the Father. Thus is his ministry as Messiah and Son launched, to the joy of John. John’s work is now done. Now in prison, his disciples report to him what Jesus is actually doing and it seems that it is not what John had expected. It seems that John expected from the Messiah — perhaps from a reading of certain passages from the Scriptures — a divine movement involving drama, force and speed. The good would be vindicated, the evil crushed. He would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He would purge the floor and gather the wheat into the barn, while the chaff he would burn with fire unquenchable (Luke 3: 16-17). But what was Jesus doing? It did not appear to be any of this. John is not only puzzled, but profoundly concerned. It may be that John was beginning to doubt the authenticity of his own inspiration. He had announced to all that his principal mission was to prepare the way for the Messiah, and he had been led, so he thought, to know who the Messiah was and to point him out. Had he been mistaken, or worse — deluded? It may be that from his prison cell, and with Satan very much at work, he was being tempted to think that his life had been on a wrong course. A darkness was descending upon him and the support of thinking that God had led him was starting to crumble from beneath him.

We are speculating here, but Luke tells us that upon hearing from his disciples what Jesus was doing he sent two of them to ask plainly if he, Jesus, was the Messiah after all. “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Our Lord’s reply in effect, perhaps, asked John to consider his ministry, as it was unfolding, in the light of many other passages in the Scriptures. “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” In any case, the answer of Jesus to John was, yes, I am indeed the one who was to come, and my works and my words are showing this. I am bringing life, life in abundance. But the point we could well take to heart in our passage today is that the life of faith is not necessarily a life of light and full clarity. It is a life of trust in the word of God and obedience to his will, but this may not mean that we shall understand the path God is choosing for us. There are very many saints whose path has been one of relative darkness. There is every reason to think that the mother of Christ, so great a paragon of faith, was led along the path of darkness. Her experience during the three days of our Lord’s disappearance at the age of twelve may be said to have been iconic of her general experience, especially in times of drama and crisis in our Lord’s life. “Child, why have you acted thus?” At his mysterious reply, we read that she and Joseph “did not understand” what he had said to them. Mary was filled with faith and grace, but not necessarily with an understanding of all the ways of God. The case was the same at this point with John the Baptist. It is the case often with those who are close to God and obedient to his will. Their faith is tested by their lack of light, and it grows accordingly. It is a cloud of unknowing, and in the midst of this cloud God draws the faithful one close to him. We must not expect to understand, but we must trust in Jesus and his word, wherever the direction our following of him takes us.

It is said that for most of her life Teresa of Calcutta lived in a darkness of faith. Yet her life of love for Jesus and the poor was magnificent. St Therese of Lisieux lived in a darkness of faith. St John of the Cross speaks of what he terms the “Dark Night” as the great purifying element in the life of faith, through which the faithful one passes in his following of the Lord. Our Gospel today gives us a glimpse of what may have been this dark night in the final days of John. Christ’s words remind us that there will be much in life we may not understand — to our unsettlement and sorrow — but “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” (Luke 7:18‑23)

(E.J.Tyler)

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