In God There Is No Darkness At All

The gospel reading for the Second Sunday in Easter is an encounter between the disciples and Jesus after his resurrection. The miracle that is normally focused on is the fact that Jesus was raised. Perhaps an even greater miracle is the fact that Jesus appeared to the disciples to invite them to continue God's work of salvation and redemption.

As you will recall, the disciples compiled a pretty dismal track record during their time with Jesus. They misunderstood Jesus' message again and again, and in the end, abandoned Jesus when he needed them the most. Peter denied knowing Jesus three times in Jesus' final hours, and now the disciples are huddled in a room, terrified that they will meet the same fate as Jesus. If the tables were turned and Jesus had abandoned the disciples, it is highly likely that the disciples would have been searching for a new master. Instead, Jesus is concerned, as always, only with furthering redemption and reconciliation. Rather than the disciples seeking out Jesus to beg for forgiveness, Jesus actually meets the disciples where they are to continue to carry out God's plan.

Jesus' willingness to be in relationship with the disciples and to use them as God's instruments raises the issue about why Jesus did not seek out new disciples, given the disciples repeated failures. Perhaps the answer lies in the notion of grace and justification by faith alone. The disciples were cognizant of their failures and shortcomings, and were aware that they were still in relationship with Jesus not out of their own merit, but because of Jesus' willingness to forgive and seek reconciliation. The disciples could proclaim a message of justification by faith alone because they themselves experienced it and knew it. If Jesus chose disciples from the courageous, the wise, or the educated, those who were chosen would have assumed that they were chosen from their own merit; such persons could proclaim justification by faith, but they wouldn't be able to really, really know it because they had not experienced the wonder of being forgiven when they had not merited forgiveness.

God calls out to us in our weakness and calls us into relationship with Him solely out of love for us and a desire for reconciliation. Ironically, what makes us able and willing to be Christ for others is our own cognizance of our weaknesses and failures. When we are sitting alone in a room, preoccupied with our failures and mistakes, remember that God simply wants our relationship with Him to continue. And, the more that we need to seek forgiveness for, the more that God will use us in God's plan of reconciliation.

The author of the First Epistle of John puts it this way: in God there is no darkness at all, only light. If Jesus had come to the disciples seeking revenge, or if Jesus had abandoned the disciples because the disciples abandoned them, that would represent some kind of darkness in God. There is no darkness in God; there is only light. There is only forgiveness and reconciliation.