Post Tenebras Spero Lucem

I was reading about John Calvin, the French theologian and reformer during the Protestant Reformation. He spent some time living in Geneva; Geneva’s coat of arms bore the Latin inscription ‘Post Tenebras Spero Lucem’ – after darkness I hope for light…

This was used by protestants to compare the light of their reformed view of God and faith to the darkness of Roman Catholic traditions…

In the Christian tradition this is a familiar picture, from the creation of the world, through to Jesus saying ‘I am the Light of the World’. Darkness exists, but it leads to light.

In the ancient story of Job, he speaks of false comforters: ‘These men turn night into day; in the face of darkness, they say light is near.’ …an ancient form of ‘the darkest hour is just before dawn’?

In his ‘finest hour’ speech, in 1940, Winston Churchill described the collapse of France following the German invasion as ‘the darkest hour in French history’. Writing after the war he described the period just before Dunkirk as ‘the darkest moment’, and the period 1940–41 as ‘the darkest hours’.

The hope is that after darkness light will come.

The ongoing war in Ukraine, the war in Israel is a very dark time for many. There is little light to be seen anywhere… Yesterday I saw one chink of light:

‘The Archbishop of Canterbury… Justin Welby was joined by Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, an Imam from Leicester and senior rabbi of Masorti Judaism UK, Jonathan Wittenberg, outside Lambeth Palace on Tuesday…’

The article described the close relationship between the three leaders and their call for peace and solidarity between faith communities, uniting in the face of conflict in the Middle East, standing against any form of discrimination or hate…

I see such light in this Christian Aid prayer: ‘Pray not for Arab or Jew, for Palestinian or Israeli, but pray rather for ourselves, that we might not divide them in our prayers but keep them both together in our hearts.’