Heaven Works Backwards
Extended (And Perhaps Disjointed) Reflections On The Light Of Advent
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” CS Lewis
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A Man Born Blind
Meet Robin.
A man born blind, a new treatment has recently enabled Robin to gain his sight. After a period of convalescence, he returns home and has a few questions.
“I mean, said Robin,….well look here Mary. There’s a thing I’ve been meaning to ask you ever since I came back from the nursing home. I know it’ll sound silly to you. But then it’s different for me. As soon as I knew I had a chance of getting my sight, of course I looked forward. The last thing I thought of before the operation was “light.” Then all those days afterwards, waiting til they took the bandages off….”
‘Of course darling. That was only natural.’
“Then, then, why don’t I…I mean, where is the light?”
Mary, somewhat confused by Robin’s question, tries to be helpful. Robin continues:
“Well then, first of all, there’s light in this room at present?”
‘Of course there is.’
“Then where is it?”
‘Why, all around us.’
“Can you see it?”
‘Yes.’
“Then why can’t I?”
‘But Robin, you can. Do be sensible. You can see me, can’t you, and the mantlepiece and the table and everything?’
“Are those light? Is that all it means? Are you light? Is the mantlepiece light? Is the table light?”
‘Oh! I see. No. Of course not. That’s the light.’ And she pointed to the bulb.
“If that’s the light, why did you tell me the light was all around us?”
‘I mean, that’s what gives the light. The light comes from there.’
“Then where is the light itself? You see, you won’t say. Nobody will say.…If you don’t know what light is, why can’t you say so? If the operation has been a failure and I can’t see properly after all, tell me. If there’s no such thing - if it was all a fairy tale from the beginning - tell me! But for God’s sake-.”
‘Robin! Robin! Don’t go on like that.’
“Go on like what?” Then he gave it up and apologized and comforted her….
Over the next few weeks, Robin goes on to meet up with a painter who’s trying to “catch the light.” Their discussion, in turn, leads to an even more opaque understanding about the nature of light - what it is, where it comes from, who can see it, etc. Robin struggles come to terms with “light.”
More about Robin in a moment.
Coming To Terms With Light
Christians globally have recently concluded the season of Advent - a time when we celebrate the coming of - and the personification of - Light into the world. The Advent season leads up to Christmas and anticipates the birth of Jesus, an event called the Incarnation. At the Incarnation, God quite literally becomes a man and assumes humanity in all its glory and weakness. He becomes fully human while remaining fully God. The Light enters our world.
Jesus’ coming - this Incarnation - was hinted at and foretold by several Old Testament prophets. Perhaps the most famous and succinct of these prophecies comes from Isaiah:
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a great light has dawned. Isaiah 9:2.
The apostle John summarizes Jesus’ fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies in his Gospel
In Him (Jesus) was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. John 1:4-5
Elsewhere, Isaiah refers to the Incarnate Jesus as Immanuel - God with us. God amongst us. God alongside us.
The writer of Hebrews describes what this Light, this Jesus, this Immanuel now means to us:
…we do not have a high priest (i.e. Jesus) who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - but He did not sin. Hebrews 4:15
He is the Light. So we live in the Light. The Light has come. But the darkness has not yet comprehended it.
John acknowledges: We have not fully come to terms with the Light.
This is the world we live in.
Embracing The Light
Like Robin, it seems to me we live in a world surrounded by light - the Light - but struggle to comprehend all it means. Or perhaps to even welcome it.
We may celebrate the Light, but usually only to a point. When it illuminates our paths, acts as a North Star to our wanderings, revives and refreshes us, we bask in it.
However, when it illuminates the dark corners of our souls, when it exposes our secret places, our “guilty pleasures, our shadows, we find the Light intrusive and overwhelming. This light ushers in an unwelcome all-encompassing transparency. Our masks come off. Our public veneers are pierced. We stand naked before God and the world. We become enlightened, but not necessarily in a way we welcome.
The same John who earlier confirmed the Incarnation - the coming of Jesus as the Light of the world - later elaborates about the Light in his first epistle:
This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5
Note that there is now no place to hide in - or from - the Light.
If we’re going to celebrate Jesus, we’ll need - like Robin - to reckon with this all-pervasive light. A light that cannot abide shadows. A light that sees, not as man sees, but a light that looks straight into our hearts and souls (1 Samuel 16:7). A light that suffers no pretence. A light that demands full accountability as a prerequisite for freedom.
Face To Face And Fully Known
I think this is where our notion of sweet baby Jesus in a manger, meek and mild, has betrayed us. Becoming Light to our broken world is an undertaking only God could have pulled off. Understanding it requires an acknowledgement of the unsalvageable mess and the impenetrable darkness we have made of the world. It took nothing less than a complete fracture of the universal modus operandi to relight the world.
I find Frederick Buechner really helpful on this point:
Incarnation. It is not tame. It is not touching. It is not beautiful. It is uninhabitable terror. It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light. Agonized laboring led to it, vast upheavals of intergalactic space/time split apart, a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself. You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this: “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God . . . who for us and for our salvation,” as the Nicene Creed puts it, “came down from heaven.”
God moved all the forces of heaven and nature to rescue us. He did what only He could do. He lit a lamp in the dark. A light that reorients us to Himself and our true selves. A calling to grace, beauty, and truth.
But still, we wrestle. We don’t fully comprehend this Light. And dark forces are still aligned against it.
I think the Apostle Paul strikes the right chord in describing our situation:
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12
In Jesus, we’ve caught a glimpse. We can see the light. We can orient our lives around it. We can bask in it. Move toward it. Align to it. And we trust that the time will come when we fully comprehend it.
Heaven Works Backwards
For now, as we fumble our way toward the Light, we’re called to live in daring hope. There will be a day when all will be fully known. I find this reminder from CS Lewis helpful:
“[This] is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, “No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.”
The Great Divorce - Chapter 9
As Jesus calls us to Himself, as we work our way toward the Light, with our doubts, fears, shortcomings, questions, etc., He hears them all. As we grow in Him, He grants increasing depth to our wisdom and understanding. The darkness begins to fade. And then, one day, in His presence, the Light fully resolves. Heaven works backwards; the light overcomes the preceding darkness, and we know in full, even as we have always been fully known.
The Light overcomes. May He grant us the grace to endure it this side of eternity. And may we welcome all it exposes in us as a gift - the gift of the Incarnation. The gift of Christmas.
As some have suggested, one day, everything sad will become untrue.
You can find the rest of Robin’s short story as a PDF at: The Man Born Blind by CS Lewis. The story is also included in a collection of Lewis’s short stories: The Dark Tower And Other Stories.
A surprise ending.
A Quick Shout Out
Again, thanks to Fika Coffee House in Parker, CO, for becoming the unofficial Cairns hangout. Fika is a Swedish verb which, loosely translated, means “to meet over coffee.” Been doing the majority of my writing/posts there. Shouting out to both locations - thanks for the space and lattes.
Be Swell Extraordinary People!!
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Great perspective realignment. It made me think how I hold onto literal “light events” in the Bible ( the transfiguration, Moses and God, appearance of angels) - physical bright light. And yeah I get He is the light of the world- in general. But what struck me here is, just as Robin fails to comprehend that light is the light waves bouncing off the clock on the mantle to inform his eyes of its location and shape, so Jesus is the source of the “light waves” that inform my spiritual cognizence of the location, shape, character of spiritual and ethical realities around me. It is the ordinary visibility of spiritual sight.