The Darkness and the Light

http://blogantes.blogspot.com/2005/08/light-darkness.html

John 1:5 - ...
The Light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.

The Light shines on in the darkness, and/but the darkness:

• did not perceive it. [Young's Literal Trans.]



• has not understood it. [New International Version]
  
• comprehended it not. [King James Version]


• apprehended it not. [American Standard]


• has not mastered it. [New English Trans.]


• has not overcome it. [Today's New International Version]


• has never overpowered it [put it out or absorbed it or appropriated it, and is unreceptive to it]. [Amplified Bible]


• couldn't put it out. [The Message]


• can never extinguish it. [New Living Translation]

This passage, a wonderful piece of poetry at the very beginning of the Gospel of John, is all about the Light, and its setting or its adversary, 'the darkness'. How the relationship between The Light and 'the darkness' is characterized, is highly dependent on the translation of the Bible that you are reading. So it is a good example of how interpretation can alter meaning.

Some translators envision 'the darkness' as a kind of unknowing, dumb beast that cannot and never will know The Light. Others indicate a capacity of 'the darkness' to experience The Light, but tell of the incapacity of 'the darkness' to capture its meaning or to deal with its presence. Other translators see an ongoing contentious struggle between The Light and 'the darkness', in which The Light continually holds sway.

If The Light is God, what is 'the darkness'? In Wycliffe's translation, 'the darknesses'? I think sometimes about how people re-enact these relationships between The Light and The Darkness. And I think that in my own life, I have been both to the people around me.

Surely there were times when I was so wrapped up in my own angst, that that I did not even see the goodness around me, in my family and neighborhood. I know that there were other times when people were trying to reach me, and I know that they were there and trying to reach me, but I was unreachable nonetheless. And still other times when my darknesses contended with the Light in my life, and the lifelight insisted itself into my dark space, almost against my will.

I amaze at the capacity of God to find us in dark times, and at the capacity of God to find me.