By His Death, He Saves Us

By Fr. Dominic Verner, O.P.

In the beginning, was the Word. “Let there be light.” And so it was. But goodness gave way to evil. We were free to love—free to not love. Light was our beginning. We preferred the darkness. And so the darkening dusk began to fall. We murdered our brothers. We lied and deceived. We cheated and thieved—indulged base appetites and marred God’s image. Light dimmed. Darkness deepened. But there was one evil, we had not yet attempted. A deepest darkness yet to be discovered. Up to now, we had rebelled against the light, always at a distance, seeking out shadows and casting for shade. But now the light had come close.

Now the age of darkness was reaching its consummation. The Light became man! God could now bleed. The last and greatest sin was before us. The world had long grown dark, dusk had set in, but now at last, utter and total darkness was before us. The light, the Word, within our power. “Let us mock him with a torturous crown.” “Let us beat him with sharp scourges.” “Let us strip him naked and nail him to a tree.” We spoke and we said: “Let there be Light no more. Let there be darkness.” God became man and man killed God. The final measure of sin. The dusk is at last complete. The deepest darkness, forever darkness, utter darkness has descended. “It is finished.”

In the beginning, was the Word. “Let there be light.” And so it was. As goodness gave way to evil, the God of love called into the darkness to remind us of the Love we spurned. The exile from Eden, the flood, and the desert: the Father disciplines, beckons, and warns. The covenant promise, the law, and the temple: the Father urges his children to turn back, to come home. The great plan is set in motion. The light will shine again. The depth of love, the Love that moves the sun and the stars, that knits each soul. But first the world grows darker. The dusk reaches its consummation. Your eyes. Your heart. Darkened by sin. And at last, that utter darkness, the death of God.

But there, in the darkness of the tomb you dug for him, the ancient voice speaks once more. “Let there be light.” “Even here?” “Even here, I AM. Even here, in your utter, in your deepest darkness, I AM.” The light had been gathering for ages—glimpses and glares and astigmatic star bursts—and at last, on the darkest of Fridays, the dawn breaks, the light overcomes: “This much I love you—I will suffer your deepest darkness. I will love you still.” The greatest love, no greater known. Darkness at last is overcome, at last, by the Light that lets us be. “It is finished.”

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Photo: Diego Velázquez — “Christ Crucified”