Breaking Open the Word
“Christ is the Light of the world.” What is contained in this short statement?
“God is Love.” This is another short line, overflowing with meaning.
“God” is a short word but infinite in meaning.
Some statements in Scripture are short and doctrinal, such as “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:16), but these simple realities need to be opened up in all their mystery with other Scriptural texts, like Song of Songs, Isaiah 40-66, or the Gospel accounts of Jesus, especially His manifesting God’s Love through His Death and Resurrection.
The Old Fulfilling the New
So, as the New Testament witnesses, Jesus Christ is the Light, but it doesn’t end there; we need to pray with the Old Testament for the richness that its narratives and poetry provide to this teaching. In the pairing of this Sunday’s First Reading from Isaiah with the Gospel, we practice this very work of opening the riches of what it means for Jesus to be the Light of the world. Isaiah’s prophetic allusions to “light” provide rich soil for our study of the word and what it means for Jesus to be light. Further, this Sunday’s Gospel passage itself offers an allegorical exegesis on Isaiah on this very theme of light as elucidating the mystery of Jesus Christ. The New Testament itself often engages in spiritual exegesis and leads the way for us in our study.
Multi-Layered Meanings and the Spiritual Senses
A common phenomenon in Isaiah is that many of the passages about the “servant of the Lord” can be interpreted either as one and the same figure, the Messiah, or as the whole community of Israel. Different passages point in either direction. For instance, there has been a long debate between Christians and Jews whether the “suffering servant” applies to one person, the Messiah, or the whole community of Israel. The best answer here is the Catholic “both/and.” The Word of God is so rich that it contains layers of meaning.
The spiritual senses of Scripture are based on this fact and help us to unearth these multi-faceted meanings. The servant of the Lord and light of the nations in Isaiah is the Messiah, Jesus Christ (the allegorical sense), and also the People of God, which could refer to Israel in the Old Testament or the New Israel, the Church, including us (the moral sense). So, not only is Jesus the Light, but we are, too, for in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says to His disciples (and us), “You are the light of the world” (Mt. 5:14 [emphasis added]). As we read these variegated passages about light in Isaiah, we can perceive both dimensions; they are about Christ and Christians.
“The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light.”
“Anguish has taken wing, dispelled is darkness.”
“Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom, a light has shone.”
The Anagogical Sense: The Already and Not Yet
These lines from our First Reading are about Jesus and about us and our own sharing the light of the Gospel, which delivers us from discouragement and brings hope. It helps us to live in this space of hope by anticipating the eschatological, as the prophets so often do in their messages (anagogical sense). According to Isaiah, darkness has been dispelled, gloom has given way to light, the yoke that burdened has been smashed, and we make merry and rejoice in the spiritual harvest. Has this really happened yet? It has been realized in Jesus, but it is yet to be fully accomplished; it is the eschatological already and not yet.
In hope, we proleptically reach out and rest in the final state of affairs as we pray with the Scriptures. The medieval monks described Lectio Divina as a foretaste of the Beatific Vision, which is eternity. Lectio teaches us how to dwell in the presence of God in preparation for that end for which we hope: eternal communion with Him. As the Lord said to Ezekiel in his prophetic vision about God’s final dwelling with His People in the eschatological temple, “Set your heart upon all I shall show you” (Ez. 40:4, cf. Col. 3:1-4, Rev. 21-22). God shows us through His Word.
The more we pray into the anagogical sense of passages like our First Reading, with its rejoicing in a great spiritual harvest and in the light that has dispelled the darkness, the more we will dwell in this space of grace, even now as bold and radiant witnesses to the Light who is Jesus. He is the Kingdom of Heaven come in His person. He proclaims in this Gospel not just the Kingdom of God but that something of the eschaton (and heaven) has come with Him, who is the Alpha and Omega.
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth article of a CE series on “Exegesis of the Word” by Fr. Ignatius Schweitzer, breaking open each Sunday’s readings for eight consecutive weeks. Catch up on previous articles here!
Photo by Aperture Vintage on Unsplash
