Light, More Light (Controversies #11)

 

This is the motto of a local university, punctuated Light! More Light! It's accompanied by a Latin phrase, veritas est lux, which means "truth is light." And isn't that right? Don't we want light, more light?

I'm not sure we do. With due respect, I'm not sure they do. 

I recall advice received from a former literary agent that I should write darker. The market wants darker. Soon, there were more, newer industry whispers--not from my agent, but in general: We want unlikable narrators. Morally gray narrators. Darker themes. Ambiguous outcomes. And then, one that shocked me a little: we don't want redemption stories. Wow. Tell me you don't want life without telling me you don't want life. 

Without redemption, we are plumb out of life.

In other words, in a sense that goes far beyond literature, tell me you don't want Jesus without telling me you don't want Jesus. You don't want the Redeemer. You don't want the Light of the World.

This taste for darkness shows up a lot of places. Fashion is one. We have witchy vibes, grunge, goth, punk, death rock--not all of it the current height of popularity, but none of it completely gone, either, and none of it that didn't leave its mark on what came after. We have an increase in mental illness that is more than just compassionately doing away with stigmas and helping people get treatment; in some cases it becomes almost a badge to wear and worse than that, an identity that ensnares the person (subconsciously, they don't know who they'd be without it) and may even bring accusations of bigotry against those who think they aren't okay as they are. And without getting explicit, let me just say that sex has gotten a whole lot darker than when I was coming of age, with influences that today's younger generation may not realize originate from porn. We can't expect the darkness around us to shed light. Darkness makes dark. 

Many say we are entering days of clear good versus evil. Perhaps so, but I'm more apt to think of it as light versus dark. The problem here is that "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5, NAS). All of this clamor for dark is a clamor for less of God. People with an affinity for darkness may say they don't want sweet, or nice, or everything tied up in a happy bow at the end. To the extent they mean they don't want a truth-denying Pollyanna-ish approach to life, or a narrative that is falsely saccharine and ignores life's difficulties, they have an excellent point. But the real motive for seeking darkness is given in John 3:19-21, spoken by Jesus Himself: 

"This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God" (NIV).

If the choice is between light and dark, I choose light. But we can't have light without the Light of the World. With our eyes fixed on Jesus, I pray more and more of us will truly be able to cry, "Light! More Light!"