NOTES for Joh 12:36-47

Today we begin with light and end with light: ‘While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light’—at the beginning. And at the end: ‘I have come into the world as light, so that no one who believes in Me should remain in darkness.’ Light is a very important word in the Gospel of John. In the prologue to John's Gospel we encounter these very words: And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (1:5) The symbolism of light and darkness has Old Testament roots. But it is not as simple as one might think when appealing to familiar cultural patterns. Let us recall the words: ‘They want to turn night into day, to bring light close to the face of darkness’ (Job 17:12). And, of course, everyone remembers the image of the ‘noonday demon’—noon is, after all, the height of daylight—from one of the best-known psalms (Ps. 91:6). The apostle Paul puts it most clearly: ‘…Satan himself takes on the appearance of an angel of light’ (2 Cor. 11:14). Unable to overcome light, darkness tries to take on its appearance. And our Lord says: I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning (Luke 10:18). Lightning, too, is light. All this allowed Blessed Jerome to introduce the word Lucifer, previously used to designate the morning star. And we must clearly understand that our task is much harder than separating light from darkness—that distinction is obvious. Our task is to distinguish what is light-bearing from what is luciferian, even though the one is an exact translation of the other. And Christ helps us in this, for He brings us back to the beginning: and God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness (Gen. 1:4).