One of the oldest tropes in storytelling is the struggle between light and dark. From Harry Potter to Star Wars, some of the most popular of stories revolve around competing worlds: a world of evil and a world of good.
The Western mind delights in such dualities. It is easy for us to comprehend this binary juxtaposition, even though, at heart, we sense that things are not usually so simple. Much of life falls somewhere in the middle, when it’s not being dragged into the light at times and then into the darkness on the worst of days.
St. John centers much of his Gospel on the play between light and dark. His Prologue deliberately echoes the story of creation in Genesis, as he describes the Word made flesh coming into the world. That Word is, of course, the Light of the world. Early in John’s Gospel, Nicodemus, who is both curious and tentative, approaches Jesus by night, under the cover of darkness. He is scared to be seen in the company of Jesus. And Jesus encourages his followers to walk in the light. He categorizes those who oppose him as ones who walk in darkness and stumble.
When Judas departs from the upper room where Jesus has just washed his disciples’ feet, it immediately turns to night. Judas is headed towards his betrayal of Jesus. And on the first day of the week, redemption comes in the dawn of early morning light, as the darkness is disappearing, when Mary Magdalene discovers the empty tomb.
This play between darkness and light is for dramatic effect, and I suspect that John himself knew exactly what he was doing when he used this literary technique. I suspect he also knew the world was not so simply divided between good and bad, light and dark.
When we enter John’s Gospel this morning, it’s around the time of the festival of Passover. It is also the eve of Jesus’ passion and death. And Jesus acknowledges the cosmic tension that is weighing on his heart. His soul is troubled because he knows where he is headed, but he will not forsake the task ahead.
What Jesus describes is very much like a game of tug-of-war. Truth be told, I never liked this game very much when I was in school, because I always found it painful. My hands were either sore from tugging on the rope or blistered from rope burn. Do you remember this game from your schooldays on the playground? If you were on the winning side, it was much less painful than being on the losing side, both emotionally and physically. If all the strong kids were on the other side, you were likely to walk away with chafed hands or scraped knees from being dragged on the ground.
The unease that Jesus highlights as he looks towards his death has been part of a cosmic game of tug-of-war since he began his public ministry. In John’s Gospel, it is this constant friction between good and evil that is where judgment happens. Judgment enters into the midst of life. Judgment is the rope burn when the power of goodness naturally tends to pull us towards the light, even as we dig our feet into the shadows.
The feeling of being caught on the wrong side of the rope is part of the human condition. St. Paul described this reality forcefully in his Letter to the Romans, when he confessed that he so often was tempted to do the very things he knew he shouldn’t do. It’s as if being human is a perpetual struggle between light and dark. You keep your hands firmly on the rope of life, and inevitably, you are pulled to the wrong side. You lose your grip, or you simply are not strong enough to resist the pull of evil.
It often depends on who’s holding onto the rope with us. When all the weight is on the wrong side of the rope, we get pulled along where we might not want to go. Systemic sin drags us to a realm that we should avoid.
When we get to Jesus’ passion and death, it would seem that the game of tug-of-war is over and that Jesus’ side is the loser. He dies an ignominious death. He is spat upon, reviled, and his disciples are left standing at the foot of the cross, wondering what they will do next. The fear, anxiety, and confusion of his disciples gathered after his death suggests that they likely felt they had lost the game. They had not pulled hard enough on their end of the rope.
But the moment of glorification that Jesus announces in today’s Gospel proves this conception wrong. Jesus subverts the common understanding of victory by revealing the glory of the cross. And he announces that when he is lifted up from the earth, he will draw all people to himself. In fact, it is not so polite. Jesus will drag all people to himself.[1] Kicking and screaming they might be, but he will drag them to himself.
This is striking. It is unexpected. With all the tug of war that has been happening between light and dark, and with all the darkness that has been displayed in the face of the truth Jesus reveals, we might not expect all people to be dragged to Jesus.
If we probe deeply enough into our own hearts, can we admit that there are people that we simply don’t want Jesus to drag to himself? Are there people that we can’t imagine are capable of being dragged to Jesus, and do we secretly or overtly wish Jesus would let go of the rope and allow them to be pulled into the shadows? Do we think we are capable of being dragged to Jesus? Can we even begin to comprehend that Jesus desires to drag all people to himself, you, and me, and especially our enemies?
It is no wonder that we doubt, or conveniently ignore, these words of Jesus. Jesus clearly states the purpose of his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. It is to reconcile all things to his Father. Jesus is pulling firmly on the rope in this cosmic game of tug-of-war. He is not letting go. How can we resist the pull?
But our world is a zero-sum game. If some win, others must lose. It’s impossible for everyone to win. Life is a competition. We treat God’s mercy as if it’s a limited supply of vaccines. If there’s a limited quantity, the fact that some are getting their vaccine means that others are not getting theirs. If some are receiving God’s gifts and mercy, then others are not.
To speak plainly, it is next to impossible to believe that God does not desire to let some people get pulled into the darkness rather than into the light. But hear the words of Jesus when he says that his lifting up will be the dragging of all people into the light.
And the reason we might resist the power of these words is that we long for justice. We want a balancing out of wrong with good. We want payback for those who relish the darkness and those who deliberately pull on the wrong side of the rope.
But this cosmic game of tug-of-war does not deny justice. It does not affirm some easy pull of the rope from dark to light, where the ones heaving and pulling with all their might in the darkest reaches of the rope gain an easy entrance into the light.
Do you remember the rope burn of your childhood games of tug-of-war? Do you remember the skinned knees as you were pulled to the victorious side by a force stronger than you and your team? So it is as Jesus drags us to himself. It is painful, because we so often resist that pull. Even when we know it’s good for us, we pull harder on our end of the rope. We dig our feet into hell, when heaven is trying to yank us forward.
And for some, it’s a long, long rope. When you’ve spent years and years digging your heels into the darkness and pulling against the light, it’s going to take a lot of work with God’s grace to be dragged into the realm of light.
But this is what Jesus came to do. The purpose of Jesus’s life, death, and glorification is for him to pull us to the Father. God’s judgment meets us in our waywardness and presents us with his truth, peace, and love. And all our attempts to resist simply injure ourselves and those we try to drag down with us. But God does not want to leave us there.
Jesus drags us kicking and screaming into the light. It is not that Jesus wants to force us into a place that we don’t want to enter. It does not negate our free will. It’s simply that as the power of God’s goodness catches on and pulls more and more people along, it is harder and harder for us to resist the pull of the light.
And when we reach that realm of light, where there is no more sorrow and sighing, we do not emerge unscathed. The scars are there to prove our struggle. It has not been easy. The triumph of glory does not negate the years of trauma, suffering, and hardship. But when we are finally pulled into the light, and we stand up on our skinned knees, we will remember what we once did not understand. Sin, pain, and death, however real they were, have no place here. They have lost their sting. And we thank God that he never let go of the rope and that we are home.
Sermon by Father Kyle
The Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 21, 2021
[1] See, in particular, the translation by David Bentley Hart in That All Shall Be Saved (New Haven: Yale UP, 2019).