This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. John 3:19-20
This statement of Jesus seems to be at odds with the claim that human beings are all created in the image of God. If we so readily love darkness, in what reasonable sense can we say we are bearers of God’s image?
Let’s ask first, is Jesus saying we love evil? Does loving the darkness, which hides the reality of the evil we do, mean we love evil? I don’t think so.
I believe no one in their right mind knowingly and intentionally does what they think is evil. Instead, we all are of the opinion that we do what is good and needed, even if others, society, or religious authorities, say otherwise. We could call this the figurative blindness that plagues us. It is the darkness.
Jesus is not saying that people love doing what they know to be wrong, but rather that what we easily and commonly do is not what is true and good. Our choices and actions may be corrupt, but we don’t realize it. We are in the darkness, unaware of the real nature of what we do.
Then, why does Jesus say we love the darkness? He is pointing out that we want to hold to our perspective, not realizing it is false. We will not easily abandon it. Our way of looking at things tells us we are good. We love to think of ourselves as justified and right.
The judgment of Jesus is that we do not see clearly, perhaps because we have rationalized our actions, but are convinced nonetheless that we are correct in what we do. His own experience in trying to show people where they are mistaken is that most cling to our self-justifying view of ourselves, our way of seeing our actions as justified. We love our delusion.
People rejected Jesus, the Light, not because they were unwilling to do good, but because they resisted the suggestion that they had been wrong about how they had been living. No one wants to hear that they’ve been wrong!
The resistance to accepting Jesus comes from recognizing that his critique, his clarifying judgments about what is good, true, and beautiful, mean that we need a radical change. We hate to admit that though we have thought ourselves good and right, we have missed the mark. We have sinned. Repentance is hard. It is to change our minds.
Jesus is not accusing humanity of loving evil, but of loving the mistaken belief that we are good. We hold tight to the delusion of our own righteousness, and refuse any suggestion to the contrary.
Darkness is the unknowing, the ignorance of true goodness. To respond to Jesus as the Light is to let go of the assumption of our own rightness, and to reassess everything we have thought about what is good and right, beautiful and true.