The True Light

1 Samuel 15:32–34; John 1:1–9

In the beginning was the Conversation, and the Discourse was with God, and the Word was God. John’s Gospel opens not in Bethlehem but in eternity. Before the manger, before David, before Abraham, before the first breath of creation—the Word. And the Word was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

The Greek word for overcome is katelaben, which carries a double meaning: to comprehend and to overpower. The darkness neither understood the light nor defeated it. Both meanings hold. Evil cannot grasp what goodness truly is. And evil cannot extinguish it, no matter how deep the night.

"There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind." —C.S. Lewis, letter to Mary Willis Shelburne

The brief, grim notice from First Samuel provides an earthly counterpoint. Samuel hews Agag in pieces before the Lord at Gilgal. Then: Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death. There is a finality here—a parting of ways, a rupture that cannot be mended. Saul will descend into madness. Samuel will grieve. The earthly story is one of loss and darkness.

But John insists: the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. Everyone. Not just the righteous. Not just Israel. Not just those who earned it. The light that was in the beginning—before the throne room, before the temple, before the fall—this light shines on every human being who has ever lived. It shone on Samuel and Saul alike. It shines on you.

Pseudo-Dionysius, the sixth-century mystical theologian, wrote of the divine darkness—the brilliance of God so overwhelming that it appears as darkness to our limited sight. The apophatic tradition teaches that God is known not by adding concepts but by stripping them away. In the end, what remains is not intellectual clarity but luminous unknowing—the light too bright for the eye to bear.

We are midway through Lent now. The novelty has worn off. The early enthusiasm has faded. What remains is the long middle—the part of the journey where you keep walking not because it is exciting but because you trust the destination. This is where John’s prologue meets us: the light shines. Present tense. Not shone once, past and gone. Shines. Now. Still.

Today, in whatever darkness you carry—grief, doubt, fatigue, the slow ache of ordinary life—know that the darkness has not overcome the light. It never has. It never will. The true light enlightens everyone. Even here. Even now. Even you.

There is a tradition in Eastern Orthodoxy called theosis—divinization—the belief that the purpose of human life is not merely to be forgiven but to participate in the divine nature. The true light that enlightens everyone is not an external lamp but an internal fire. It does not illuminate us from without; it kindles us from within. We are not merely objects that reflect light. We are called to become sources of light—to be, in our own small way, what Christ is fully: the light shining in the darkness that the darkness cannot overcome.