“It was night.”
Is it necessary in the narrative to describe the time when Judas left the group of disciples to betray Jesus? The significance of “nighttime” is symbolic.
Night is not necessarily negative. For instance, in the writings of Saint John of the Cross, we encounter the notion of the dark night (noche oscura) to describe the seeming obscurity of God when in fact He is most present.
But night is mostly negative in the Gospel of John which contrasts it with Light, who is Jesus himself. In this Gospel, the darkness of the night could symbolize Judas’ state of mind since Satan has entered into him.
Darkness often enables a person to see reality as s/he wishes. It is in the dark when we can see evil as good, and good as evil.
A line from the musical ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ says, “Close your eyes for your eyes will only see the truth and the truth isn’t what you want to see.
In the dark, it is easy to pretend that the truth is what it ought to be.”
Today, we ask whether our actions can stand under the scrutiny of the gazing light, which is Jesus himself.
Fr. Ramon D. Echica is the Dean of Studies of the San Carlos Major Seminary. He obtained his doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Catholic University of Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) in 1998.
