Defeating The Darkness

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Text: John 6:16-24

Reflection: As I read this passage, a new thought came to my mind. Here is Jesus, walking on the water in the midst of a churning storm, coming to his terrified disciples. Often times I have heard people talk about this passage as though the primary lesson is how Jesus can calm the storms in our own lives. And while this is certainly true, I now wonder if that is the primary message of this text. Perhaps not...and perhaps in our hurry to apply it to us we minimize its actual impact.

It is pretty common knowledge among present day scholars that the Jews viewed the water as the domain of darkness...the sphere where the devil was active...a physical embodiment of chaos and evil. And yet, in the midst of darkness and a raging storm, Jesus treads on the waters as though it were no obstacle at all. It seems to me that the point may well be not that Jesus can calm the storms in my life, but rather that Jesus can and is destroying the source of chaos and darkness. That He is destroying the source of chaos, rather than the symptoms.

If this is true, then what an amazing picture it is of something we read in Genesis 3:15. There, just after the fall, God says that the devil will strike at the heel of the Messiah, but that the Messiah will crush his head. So here is Jesus, treading on the domain of the devil...walking over his territory and crushing his head. The devil does what he can, striking out at the Messiah's heel, but to no avail. This battle was settled in the garden and is now being publicly displayed for His disciples. If this is true, then the good news for me is that the great enemy of us all is defeated...the domain of darkness has been tread over...the ruler who uses chaos to terrify and destroy has been overcome and Jesus brings calm not just to the storms of my life...but to the very cosmos. How cool is that?