February 19: “Those Who Believe in Me Will Not Remain in Darkness”
♫ Music:
Day 3 - Friday, February 19
Title: “THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN ME WILL NOT REMAIN IN DARKNESS”
Scripture: John 12:44-50
And Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me. He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me. I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness. If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak. I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.”
Poetry:
Light
by Alice Jones
The morning when I first notice
the leaves starting to color,
early orange, and back-lit,
I think how rapture doesn't
vanish, merely fades into
the background, waits for those
moments between moments.
I think this and door opens,
the street takes on its glistening
look, Bay fog lifting, patches of sun
on sycamore—yellow sea.
I am in again, and swimming.
THE QUIET RHYTHMS OF SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION
The symbol of light permeates the Gospel of John. Beginning with verses 4-5 in the opening prologue, the image of Jesus as “the light of all mankind” and “light [that] shines in the darkness” suggests hope, promise, and confidence. Hope is forward-looking – it dwells in expectancy and longs for fulfillment. Like the second verse of today’s song, “Where We Are,” the performers express the light of Jesus’s presence as anticipatory reassurance and comfort: “When in darkness, you will show us your light / When in sorrow, it’s your comfort we find / In oppression, on the hope of your justice we stand.”
At the same time, as John 12:44-50 reminds us, the light of Jesus also points to spiritual illumination and insight. In verse 46, Jesus declares, “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.” Often when I think of spiritual illumination, I picture something like Saul encountering Jesus on the road to Damascus – sudden and intense, a dramatic moment of revelation. Yet spiritual insight can also take the form of a quiet perceptual shift, as Alice Jones’s poem, “Light,” so beautifully captures. Registering the moment when autumnal leaves “...start… to color / early orange, and back-lit” (2-3), the speaker describes her perception as a “rapture” (4), suggesting the instantaneous visual pleasure of noticing a new impression, of a familiar sight transformed. While there is certainly the sense of epiphany (which “rapture” implies), it is accompanied by dispersal: the shift in perspective “doesn’t / vanish, merely fades into/the background, waits for those/moments between moments” (4-7). That is to say, the brilliance of sudden illumination also recedes into the noise of daily life, diffuse and latent, only to emerge again when the speaker sees “the patches of sun” (10) shimmer on the ocean into a “yellow sea” (11). I want to dwell on this idea of spiritual illumination as participating in the quieter rhythms of the ordinary, the small rapturous glimpses of everyday sensation and insight. I am interested in precisely what happens after the light appears and how it persists and flickers in darkness. This notion parallels Anthony McCall’s 2006 installation in London’s Round Chapel, which used a digital projector to cast three-dimensional shapes, ellipses, waves, and flat planes that expand, contract, and undulate through a darkened, haze-filled room. The projected light cuts through the darkness intermittently, creating arcs of luminosity and shadow that provide alternating flashes of radiance. Like Jones’s poem, McCall’s installation alludes to the ephemerality of light, how its brightness eventually fades and recedes, absorbed into the background.
I think both of these works help us understand a deeper spiritual truth in John 12 about how belief and spiritual illumination work together. When Jesus first illumines our hearts, it is like the flashes of radiance of McCall’s projector or the perceptual shift of Jones’s poem: we can no longer “remain in darkness” (46). Yet the suddenness and intensity of illumination gives way to the evanescence of everyday life – we might have cognitively gained a new insight, but it takes time to let it permeate our entire lives. Belief, like light, involves perceptual shifts. Those shifts are more often gradual adjustments of vision than the sudden flooding of a spotlight. Verses 45-46 register both types of knowing: “He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me. He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me.” On the one hand, Jesus declares that knowing him as the “Light into the world” primarily means recognizing his oneness with God the Father. This is a profound and illuminating claim – the flash in the darkness. Yet on the other hand, Jesus also says that if you “see” him you see the Father, implying that relational intimacy with him and God takes time and recognition. After all, a few chapters later, in response to Phillip, Jesus says, “Don’t you know me . . . even after I have been among you such a long time?” (14:9). To be honest, during this time of pandemic living, more than ever have I longed for a dramatic moment of spiritual insight to puncture the monotony of the everyday. Yet these verses remind me that belief (in God’s goodness, sovereignty, nearness), like the small perceptual shifts of illumination, can sometimes be mundane and thus more attainable: the daily attunement to God’s presence in the prosaic, yielding eventually to a greater and more powerful transformation.
Prayer:
Jesus, tune my eyes and ears to your presence in my daily life so that my heart and vision are transformed. Give me the patience and perseverance to continue seeking your light even in the midst of what appears to be sameness.
Amen.
Maria Su Wang
Associate Professor of English
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork
Between You and I (Installation view)
Anthony McCall
2006
Installation, computer file, digital projector, hazer
30-minute program
Peer/The Round Chapel
London, England
Photograph © Hugo Glendinning
In darkened, haze-filled rooms, artist Anthony McCall meticulously programs projections that create an illusion of three-dimensional shapes, ellipses, waves, and flat planes that gradually expand, contract, and sweep through space. In his series entitled Between You and I, McCall developed a series of vertically oriented shafts of light emanating from overhead. Light is a powerful element—it promotes life and growth and gives us the ability to see and find our way. We commonly associate light with Jesus, who is the ultimate Light of the World, the one who has brought us out of the bonds of darkness and into the light of life-affirming freedom and truth.
About the Artist:
Anthony McCall (b.1946) is a British-born, New York–based artist known for his “solid-light’” installations, a series that he began in 1973. McCall studied graphic design and photography at Ravensbourne College of Art and Design in England from 1964 to 1968. McCall was a key figure in the avant-garde London Film-makers Co-operative in the 1970s. His earliest films are documentations of outdoor performances that were notable for their use of the elements, most notably fire. After moving to New York in 1973, McCall continued his fire performances and developed his “solid light” film series, which was based on simple, animated line-drawings. At the end of the 1970s, McCall withdrew from making art. Some twenty years later, he once again began his work, this time using digital animation and digital projection. McCall also developed a parallel series of vertically oriented works which included Between You and I. McCall has recently embarked on a new series, which uses slanting beams of light, projected from ceiling to floor at a forty-five-degree angle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_McCall
http://www.anthonymccall.com/
About the Music:
“Where We Are” from the album Rest for the Weary
Lyrics:
Our God, our Brother
Please be near us, Lord
We are tired and so worried
Calm our weary souls
When in darkness, you will show us your light
When in sorrow, it's your comfort we find
In oppression, on the hope of your justice we stand
You will meet us where we are
You keep us safe from harm
We are in your arms
Jehovah-shammah
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
You're with us where we are
In our sin, we were dying
When you sent your Son
And when we fall still you come down to
Dwell amongst us all
About the Lyricist/Composer:
Jessica Fox is a composer and, along with singers Joseph Clarke and Mariah Hargrove, is a member of the a cappella trio Resound. The three singers quit their jobs in 2018 to devote all their time to music and just two years later they performed on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. When they started performing, the group sang gospel music. “As time went on, we wanted to spread hope and joy, but we never forgot our gospel roots,” says Hargrove. “We are an inspirational group. We believe in hope, love, and bringing people joy.”
https://richmondfamilymagazine.com/justjoan/what-the-world-needs-now-is-resound-on-americas-got-talent/
About the Performers:
Urban Doxology is a ministry that writes the soundtrack of reconciliation in the racially diverse and gentrifying neighborhood of Church Hill, Richmond, VA. The band evolved out of the Urban Songwriting Internship Program that is a partnership with Arrabon and East End Fellowship. Most of the band members are an active part of East End Fellowship, a community that endeavors to be a faithful presence seeking God’s joy and justice for their neighborhood out of love for Christ. Urban Doxology is a ministry of Arrabon.
http://www.urbandoxology.com/about
About the Poet:
Alice Jones is an American poet, physician, and psychoanalyst. Her most recent collection of poetry is Plunge (2012). Her poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including Antioch Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, The Boston Review, The Denver Quarterly, and Chelsea. Her honors include fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and the National Endowment for the Arts. Jones is a training and supervising analyst on the faculty of the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis and practices in Berkeley, California. She is also co-editor of Apogee Press.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Jones_(poet)
http://www.alicejones.net/contact_poet.html
About the Devotion Author:
Maria Su Wang
Associate Professor of English
Biola University
Maria Su Wang teaches courses in nineteenth and twentieth-century British literature, the Victorian novel, and world literature. She earned a B.A. at University of California, Los Angeles, majoring in English and minoring in French. Wang received her master’s degree and doctorate from Stanford University, where she completed a dissertation that compares narrative techniques in Victorian novels with concepts from continental sociologists. Outside the classroom, she enjoys traveling, hiking, cooking, and spending time with her husband and two children.