Light From Underground

Dad was a creature of habit, many good, a few not so good and one or two that were downright peculiar. I am not sure what category his spring romances fit into but as sure as green-up time would come each April my young, single father would find himself in courting mode come May. One particular spring evening when I was about six or seven years old, Dad left me in the care of my grandparents and hotfooted it a couple of kilometres over to a neighbour’s. They had a daughter who was also a single parent. A few people gathered and the night turned into a bit of a party. Apparently the jar was generously passed. By the time Dad realized that he’d better hike home to catch some shut-eye before work, it was well past midnight. He slowly wandered down the gravel road wanting the warm spring night and the influences of the evening to linger. As he passed by Mrs. Leask’s hayfield he paused to drink in the delicious spring air.

That’s when he saw them; first just one little spark, then another and another. Dad blinked and shook his head. It just didn’t compute. Right before his eyes, which were valiantly struggling to focus, Mrs. Leask’s whole hayfield seemed to burst into tiny flaming lanterns. What he was seeing was incomprehensible. How could this be?

If Dad was a critter of habit he also leaned towards being a tad superstitious. I suppose that at least partially explains his reaction. Sometime long ago in his interesting past, someone had told him the story of the will-o’-the wisp, the mysterious flickering lantern sometimes seen by travellers over bogs or hayfields. It was said to be created by an evil fairy meaning to lure the traveller off the beaten path in order to get them eternally lost. As he furiously blinked his bleary eyes, he dredged this story up from somewhere deep within his memory and suddenly it became very real to him. This had to be a will-o’-the wisp assembly. There had to be thousands of them. Dad quickly modified his easy night stroll into a jog for home.

I don’t think I really have to tell the rest of the story. Most of us can probably feel Dad’s panic at this point. Who has not started jogging from some perceived threat in the dark and found that with each step the jog accelerates into a flat out panic-driven sprint for safety? Dad’s rapidly accelerating sprint for home was three kilometres long. And if I remember his story right, he arrived home with only one shoe on.

What Dad’s imagination deemed a will-o’-wisp convention was really a firefly pupation party. Usually there seem to be just a few fireflies around and people seldom see them. But on just the right warm spring night, in just the right hayfield, the light show can be absolutely amazing. Dad had unknowingly hit just the right hayfield on just the right night.

What is amazing is that the firefly pupation party flared up from under the ground. The different species of North American fireflies spend up to two years underground as larvae before they pupate to spend the final two weeks of their lives as adults, flashing, mating and laying eggs. With fireflies, the light comes from underground, like the resurrection. And it is almost as incomprehensible.

Christmas, for the most part, is something I can get my mind around. It’s filled with shepherds, travellers from other lands, an extremely uptight husband and a mother desperately straining to give birth. Even with the angel visitations, somehow I can relate to all this. It’s all so human. But Easter, that’s a different kettle of fish. The bodily resurrection of a mutilated corpse seems incomprehensible; it was for the disciples 2,000 years ago and remains so today, at least for me. And the incomprehensible sets some to running away and others to leaning on superstition. The risen Jesus corners the runners and confronts the superstitious. He tracks them down in their hideouts and disproves their superstitions by eating, drinking and touching. But still I am left struggling with how I can relate.
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To help me to be able to relate to the incomprehensible resurrection, the writer of John’s gospel—which I believe is different from the three synoptic gospels in that it is a resurrection story from the very first to the very last verse—begins by giving me powerful symbols. John’s resurrection story begins with a creation story with Jesus placed right in the middle: “All things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:3-5).

Somehow I am transported back to the Genesis creation story and I hear the divine command, “Let there be light!” I realize that order is brought out of chaos with this command. I realize that all life begins with this command. But with John’s gospel it’s like a prophecy waiting underground for the resurrection to flare up in bright light fulfillment. Pope Benedict XVI said, “The resurrection of Jesus is an eruption of light. Death is conquered, the tomb is thrown open. The Risen One himself is Light, the Light of the world. With the resurrection, the Lord’s day enters the nights of history. Beginning with the resurrection, God’s light spreads throughout the world and throughout history. Day dawns. This Light alone—Jesus Christ—is the true light, something more than the physical phenomenon of light. He is pure Light: God himself, who causes a new creation to be born in the midst of the old, transforming chaos into cosmos.”

With all the death, darkness and chaos in my life, I can relate to this; I need to relate to this. In the words of Robert Lowry, “up from the grave he arose” and if I stand and believe the incomprehensible resurrection, rather than run and resort to the comfort of my doubts and superstitions, the promise is that this Risen One has the power to command light and life in my life; to make me a new creation defeating the death, darkness and chaos that suck the life right out of me. The Risen One promises: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).