As a kid, I loved Westerns. I can probably still remember all the theme songs for “Cheyenne,” “Bronco Lane,” “Sugarfoot,” “Maverick,” “The Lawman,” “Have Gun Will Travel,” “Rawhide.”
You could always tell the good guys from the bad guys because the "good guys" always wore white hats, and the "bad guys" wore black hats. It isn’t really true. While the Lone Ranger, the Rifleman, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, usually donned white Stetsons, Wyatt Earp and Zorro wore black hats.
Sometimes Bret Maverick wore a white hat and other times, a black hat. There were also tan hats and grey hats. All in all, the color of one’s hat is a pretty poor basis upon which to judge good and evil.
The contrast of white and black, light and darkness, day and night, has a long tradition of metaphorical usage. If we keep something dark, we keep it secret – like Dark Ops. If we’re in the dark about something, we don’t know much, if anything, about it. If we bring something to light or if something comes to light, we learn things of which we were unaware. If we or someone else sheds light on something, additional information is disclosed.
John’s gospel is full of light and dark motifs. We learn that in Jesus was life and that life was the light of human beings. John the Baptist bore witness to the light that all might believe through him. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. We’re told Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night – a word that can be used metaphorically to mean “in the dark.” And Nicodemus clearly is ‘in the dark’ about this Jesus.
At the center of story is one of the best-known verses in all scripture. Martin Luther called it the gospel in miniature. John 3:16 may be the first verse you ever memorized. It’s a powerful message, especially when we pair with its partner, John 3:17.
We could look at belief as simple intellectual assent. God loved the world so much that Jesus lived, died and lives again, and if we believe, we’re among those who will not perish and who gain eternal life.
But calling belief simply intellectual assent is like calling tiramisu simply cake without considering all its ingredients. We’d be right but we’d be woefully incomplete.
My guess is that most if not all of us have thought things or done things we hope will never see the light of day. We may want to keep our desires, and our selfish ways hidden in the shadows.
Living in the light calls us to demonstrate how we trust the ways Jesus has called us to live. Trusting in Jesus means that we work for kindness and love and justice in this world and that we orient our lives around the teachings of Jesus.
The light of Christ illuminates the true nature of things. Any illusions, pretensions, are exposed. We and our world stand before God without even a fig leaf.
