Rage Against the Dying of the Light

By Bethany Kaldas

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Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbour,” for we are members of one another. ²⁶ “Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, ²⁷ nor give place to the devil.

Ephesians 4:25-27

Anger is a very complicated emotion. As a Christian, it is often quite difficult to see exactly where it should fit into life—if it has any place in Christian life at all. It’s such an ugly feeling after all—the sudden heat, the thunder of the heart, the racing of the mind, the tightening of muscles ready to push against some opposing force. Anger feels aggressive, it feels unkind. 

And sometimes—perhaps most of the time, it is. Anger against those who provoke our anger is indeed a dangerous thing. Any anger directed to another creature or even an inanimate object should be restrained, any anger provoked by a sense of self-importance or the preservation of our own dignity or rights should be kept in check. Anger is a dangerous emotion when left to its own devices. 

But this does not mean that it is without purpose. Jesus Himself felt anger.

Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. ¹³ And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ”

Matthew 21:12-13

The anger Christ felt in the temple was not a blind rage, it was not untempered aggression—it was not for His own sake or because His own sensibilities had been offended. And perhaps most importantly, His anger was not for the purpose of hurting anyone. Christ’s anger in the temple was a rage at an injustice—it was a reaction against the suppression, the corruption of something that was beautiful and precious. Anger is a prompt to fight for something that matters—to fight against something that is unjust.

Be at enmity, but be so with the devil, and not with a member of your own. For this purpose it is that God has armed us with anger, not that we should thrust the sword against our own bodies, but that we should baptize the whole blade in the devil’s breast. There bury the sword up to the hilt; yea, if you will, hilt and all, and never draw it out again, but add yet another and another. And this actually comes to pass when we are merciful to those of our own spiritual family and peaceably disposed one towards another. Perish money, perish glory and reputation; my own member is dearer to me than they all.

John Chrysostom, Homily 14 on Ephesians

A man named Dylan Thomas once wrote a poem called Do not go gentle into that goodnight. The poem speaks of how we must not simply let death take us—we must fight for our lives, we must fight against the death that threatens to take away something so precious and valuable. 

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that goodnight

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. This is what our anger is meant for—we are to rage against death, just as Christ did on His cross. But biological death was not the only kind of death that Christ fought against—and it is not the only kind of death we face. 

As long as we ourselves are real, as long as we are truly ourselves, God can be present and can do something with us. But the moment we try to be what we are not, there is nothing left to say or have; we become a fictitious personality, an unreal presence, and this unreal presence cannot be approached by God.

Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray

What about the death of self? Not in the sense of sacrificing ourselves for others or devoting our lives to something we believe in. I mean the slow, degrading death that occurs when we sacrifice our unique individuality for the sake of adhering to a standard set by others. The disease of mindless, fretful conformity, the illness that makes us too afraid to stand out, too weary to stand up for what we know in our hearts to be right, too afraid to show our true selves to others for fear of being rejected or shamed. We have a particular light in each of us—Divine breath formed and moulded into your exact shape, your exact heart. There is only one of you—and there will never be another. Do we rage, rage against the fading of that unique light God has put in our hearts?

Hope makes you see God’s guiding hand not only in the gentle and pleasant moments but also in the shadows of disappointment and darkness. No one can truly say with certainty where he or she will be ten or twenty years from now. You do not know if you will be free or in captivity, if you will be honored or despised, if you will have many friends or few, if you will be liked or rejected. But when you hold lightly these dreams and fears, you can be open to receive every day as a new day and to live your life as a unique expression of God’s love for humankind. There is an old expression that says, “As long as there is life there is hope.” As Christians we also say, “As long as there is hope there is life.”

Henri J.M. Nouwen, Turn My Mourning into Dancing: Finding Hope in Hard Times

What about the death of hope? When our lives become heavy, the burden strains on our shoulders and we spend so much time with our heads bent beneath it that we can no longer see a way forward. We no longer see a point, we no longer see our worth, we no longer hear that voice that calls us Beloved, the voice that screams that you are never alone and that there is a plan for your life. We cannot hear that voice because it gets drowned out by so many others that say there’s no use. No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be what they want you to be, you’ll never make anything of your life. All to easily, without cry or shout, we sink into a despair that infects every aspect of our world and drains it of life or colour like a parasite. Do we rage, rage against the dying light in our souls, the lantern we keep to illuminate our own way and bring hope to others around us?

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. ² And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3

What about the death of love? When we become consumed with our own needs, our own desires. When we become myopic, unable to see beyond our own points of view; when we become deaf, unable to hear the cries of the impoverished, the abandoned, the desperate. When we become so frail of self that we can no longer muster the courage to reach out to those who stumble down dark paths on their own. When people become tools to be used or obstacles to overcome rather than human beings. When our hearts solidify into stone and we no longer shed tears for the weeping, when we cannot bring ourselves to grieve with the grieving. Do we rage, rage against the darkness that threatens to devour those around us, the shadows of persecution, loneliness and distress?

Perhaps you don’t think you face death very often. Perhaps you think your life is relatively tame. Perhaps you don’t. In either case, I can assure you—you see death every day. Maybe not physical death, but all these other kinds of death that are no less dangerous. They prowls like a hungry beast, just waiting for someone to trip, to stagger, to be left behind and left alone. 

And when we are faced with those deaths, what do we do? Do we lay down and die? Or do we fight?

Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Do we wage these battles with our integrity, our faith, our compassion? Do we fight to keep our souls whole? Do we fight to stay afloat in the wildest storms of our life? Do we fight to remind each other that we are precious? Do we fight for the lives of our neighbours when the deaths of despair, isolation and oppression surround them?

Our anger was never meant for our neighbour. Our rage was designed to fight death—in whatever form it takes. 

If we care nothing when we realise that we are changing to conform to the standards of others and losing ourselves, then something is wrong. If we lay down and accept the feeling that we are hopeless and our lives have no purpose, then we have lost something precious. If we see the pain of our brothers and sisters and sit back and let them suffer, without help, without even a hand to hold, then we are not being what we are meant to be. 

We cannot see these deaths and do nothing. We were called to fight. Our anger yearns to fix what is broken. We cannot go gentle into that goodnight. We cannot let the darkness win—whatever that darkness looks like in your life or the lives of those around you.  

Feel the anger. Let it surge through you. Let it prompt you into action. Let it be your fuel to fight. Do not go gentle into that goodnight. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Learn to do good;
Seek justice,
Rebuke the oppressor;
Defend the fatherless,
Plead for the widow.

(Isaiah 1:17)

A Comfortable Life

By Shery Shehata

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“Work hard now so you don’t have to work hard later.”

I know I’m not the only one that had this drilled into my brain from a young age. If you have first generation parents in particular, this is so important to them. They didn’t travel half-way around the world for you to struggle in life. 

The simple goal is that we struggle up until the point where our output is no longer greater than our input. Beyond this point, you can live fairly comfortably. There is peace in being content – in not living beyond your means. I think this is an okay goal to have, to be peaceful and content after working hard and in turn, reap the rewards. 

But then I get stuck on, “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). It stumps me, because this comes after anxiety and distress. You give your anxiety and distress to God and He gives you peace in return, but what if I’m already comfortable, can’t I still have peace from God, too?

There is a type of peace that comes from God alone, when everything around me is falling apart, and there is an unexplainable peace within me. I can’t have that from being content in the world. If I think I am at peace when everything around me is good, then I am deceived. St John Chrysostom contemplates on this verse; 

For who could have expected and who could have hoped for such benefits? It transcends every human intellect and all speech. For his enemies, for those who hated him, for the apostates—for all these he did not refuse to give his only begotten Son, so as to make peace with them…. The peace which will preserve us is the one of which Christ says, “My peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.” For this “peace surpasses all human understanding.” How? When he sees that we should be at peace with enemies, with the unrighteous, with those who display contentiousness and hostility toward us, how does this not pass human understanding?

St John Chrysostom 

When St John Chrysostom speaks of peace, he links back to the life of Christ. That was not a comfortable life. Christ was confrontational, but nowadays, we don’t really like confrontation either, we like to, “keep the peace” instead.

The line, “keep the peace” is moreso, to keep us and everyone around us comfortable. To look outwardly peaceful is important in our modern Western world. But I can’t let that outward display be the only thing that is inside my heart. When I come to my Father, I come to Him in all honesty, so that the peace that surpasses all understanding guards my heart, and not the fake comfortable peace I think I have from the world. 

While the world values comfort and being amicable with everyone around you, the goal of Love is different. When it comes to prayer, I cannot be deceived by a, “good day” that ends without prayer;

There are no good days or bad days. There are days with prayer and days without prayer.

St Pope Kyrillos VI

If a comfortable day becomes my definition of a good day, then I lose sight of what matters. My prayers become sporadic and centred on my own comfort and worldly goals, I miss the point of this life and the hereafter; 

We are not to entreat God that our interests may thrive, or that our responsibilities and work may grow and flourish, thereby giving us earthly fame and glory, carnal peace and comfort. Rather, we should ask Him to root out all our affairs in the spirit of selfishness, which glorifies the human ego, and to inspire in us uprightness of mind and heart that we may not use guile, deceit, covetousness, falsehood, theft or lying in our work.

Fr Matthew the Poor, Guidelines for Prayer 

In prayer, we re-centre our minds and our intentions toward Christ. In the world, everyone around me might be chasing fame, glory and carnal peace, but in my prayers, I seek uprightness of heart and mind. I pursue the love of Christ so that His glory and His peace are my foundations. This is where I find my true comfort. 

God’s warning to us was always, “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world”( John 16:33). 

Maybe our greatest tribulation is in the unseen – in our comfort, in our apathy, in our pursuits and our pleasures that draw us away from the Kingdom. When things are bad, at least this draws me to prayer. When things are good, what Cross do I feel then need to carry?

When the devil looked at Job, he saw a happy and righteous man that had all the comfort of the world. But I wonder what the devil could not see, if he never actually saw Job’s prayers. I wonder when Job got home, shut the door to his room, when no one else was around, did he wrestle with God in prayer for his soul even though by all worldly standards, he was comfortable? 

Job continuously gave glory to God, which must have come from a genuine relationship with God. In wealth or in poverty, the relationship did stay the same. Job didn’t “see” God in his comfort, but in his tribulation (Job 42:5). Job would have heard from many about their tribulations that God delivered them from, but it was only after his own tribulation and loss that his eyes saw the work of God, too.  

If we want to know our spiritual lives, we have to reflect on our consistency. When even a little bit of comfort is taken from me, what does my prayer life look like? If it’s a relationship I have, and I value that relationship, nothing will change. I might be upset, but my love for God is still there. Job received twice as much as before, for Job knew how to prioritise his relationship with the Father above all possessions he had. 

If all I know is this world, then it makes sense but that I strive to get comfortable where I am, but if I read, if I pray, if I look to the saints who suffered before me, then I know I need to strive and push for the greater Kingdom that is to come. Glory be to God, Amen. 

“…We believe in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-Begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages; Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not created, of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made: Who for us, men, and for our salvation, came down from Heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”
(Excerpt from the Agpeya, the Orthodox Creed)

We as Christians attribute our heritage to the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ the Messiah. Our faith is experienced and celebrated through the revelation and birth of a prophesied newborn Child, God’s plan for our achievement of salvation. The birth of our Lord Jesus Christ is mysterious and yet glorious. It is of One Divine Nature. A Divinity older than the Creation that has no beginning and no end. It is full of awe and yet full of reverence to those present at His Holy birth and today in the hearts of the faithful believers. Yes, we believe, the Lord Jesus Christ is begotten of the Father beyond time and without change.

“You, Lord in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the Heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will remain; and they will all grow old like a garment, like a cloak You will fold them up, and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not fail” (Hebrews 1:10-12).

Clement of Alexandria proclaimed to the world concerning the Light of the Glorious Nativity, “Oh, the Great God! O the perfect Child! The Son in the Father and the Father in the Son…God the Word, who became man for our sakes.”

When we think of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ we should think of extraordinary, unprecedented humility. God the Word humbled Himself by becoming man, but…there was no change in His Divinity.

Light of Divinity

The Son of God is begotten from the Father and likewise as the sun does not exist without bearing light so neither does the Father exists without the Son. He is of the Divine One and called the Son of the Most High God. He came down from the Heaven and assumed flesh. He clothed Himself with it from St. Mary.

Aristides c. 125 said, “…And the son of God lived in the daughter of man.”

The Holy New Testament Book of Hebrews further explains the brightness of the light of Divinity…

“Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High” (Hebrews 1:3).

In the “Letter to Diognetus” c. 125, it is written, about the Divine nature of our Lord Jesus Christ…

“Truly God Himself, who is Almighty, the Creator of all things, and invisible has sent from Heaven and placed among men, the One who is the truth, and the holy and incomprehensible Word…God did not as one might have imagined, send to men any servant, angel, or ruler…Rather, He sent the very Creator and Fashioner of all things—by whom He made the Heavens…As a king sends his son, who is also a king so God sent Him. He sent Him as God.”

In worshipping our Lord Jesus Christ, in faithfully following His teachings, we enter the Kingdom of Heaven. This is the light of the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and the intention of His Holy birth.

Light of Incarnation

Incarnate is becoming of flesh. The Lord Jesus Christ became incarnate when He took upon Himself the human nature of man. By this action the light of the Incarnation reunited all men to God. God is perfect and in His perfection through the Incarnation made perfect Man.

“The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I have been established from everlasting, from the beginning, before there was ever an earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth; while as yet He had not made the earth or the fields, or the primal dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep, when He established the clouds above, when He strengthened the fountains of the deep, when He assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters would not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside Him as a master craftsman;and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him” (Proverbs 8:22-30).

Redemption for all man is approachable and given through the Incarnation and birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17).

The Person of God the Son was well explained by the early church fathers…

“He is God in the form of man, stainless, the minister of His Father’s will, the Word who is God, who is in the Father who is at the Father’s right hand. And with the form of God, He is God.” (St. Clement of Alexandria, c. 195)

“God by His own Word and Wisdom made all things.” (Theophilus c. 180)

King David in his song proclaimed the light of the Incarnation to come…

“The Lord said to Me, “You are My Son, today I have begotten You” (Psalm 2:7).

Light of the World

“So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You.’ As He also says in another place: ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’” (Hebrews 5:5-6).

During the time of honoring the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ we are called to remember He came to be born and live among the worldly not a select few of nobility. Yet, He came as both priest and king. He came not for a scant few but for all who would gather together in His Name. The Lord Jesus Christ did not sin therefore he was truly the light of the world.

The Lord Jesus Christ from birth forward to this day would become the light of the world by His example. A light before the time of man, during the time of man, and will follow all time of man.

A Psalm of David would reveal, “Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58).

“The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1). A confirmation of faith, a prophecy of the light to come, was within his song.

It is accepted among the faithful that the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ ranks higher than any earthly event, without this event no other miraculous events performed by our Lord could have occurred…

“The best thing on earth is the most pious man. The best thing in Heaven the nearer in place and purer, is an angel, the partaker of the eternal and blessed life. But the nature of the Son, which is nearest to Him who is alone the Almighty One, is the most perfect, most holy, most potent, most princely, most kingly, and most beneficent. This is the highest excellence, who orders all things in accordance with the Father’s will and holds the helm of the universe in the best way…The Son of God is never displaced…being always everywhere and being contained nowhere. He is complete seeing all things, hearing all things, knowing all things…All the host of angels and gods are placed in subjection to Him. He, the paternal Word, exhibits the holy administration for Him who put all things in subjection to Him.” (St. Clement of Alexandria, c. 195)

Dionysius of Alexandria c. 262 as quoted by St. Athanasius, wrote…

“There certainly was not a time when God was not the Father…Because the Son has existence from the Father, not from Himself, it does not mean that God afterwards begot the Son…Being the brightness of the eternal Light, He Himself also is absolutely eternal. If the light is always in existence, it is manifest that its brightness also exists…God is the eternal Light, which hasn’t a beginning nor will it ever fail. Therefore, the eternal brightness shines forth before Him and co-exists with Him. Existing without a beginning and always begotten. He always shines before Him. His is that Wisdom that says, ‘I was that in with He delighted and I was daily his delight, before His face a all times.”

The mission of the church today and throughout the centuries of its existence has been to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ to the world. Wise men and women still seek Him, shepherds still adore Him, and Christians around the world celebrate the day upon which He was born unto the virgin St. Mary.

As we light candles on the Feast of the Glorious Nativity let us remember they are symbolizations of the light of our Lord Jesus Christ, the light of those candles which symbolizes newness, goodness, and from the inception of His Holy Birth lead the way to our salvation.