In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the journey of the protagonist into the jungle is a metaphor for a journey into the darkness of the soul. Throughout the Great Forty Days there is great attention afforded to the darkness, most especially in the Psalmody but also in the prayers and hymns of our Lenten services.

In the darkness there are arrows that fly at night. In the darkness there are demons. In the darkness there is fear.

The liturgical services bear witness to this darkness as the lights dim for the Compline Service and Presanctified Liturgies. Somber tones dominate the hymnody that is chanted in churches, clothed in purple. The darkness, however, that the psalms, hymns, and prayers refer to is not that which lies outside our doors but rather that which resides within the inner most recesses of our hearts.

Sadly, in this modern age, many of us have become immune to the power of darkness. In the ancient world there were no illuminated skylines, no brightly lit avenues, but rather a nighttime of total blackness wherein there persisted the danger of savage animals or marauding bandits and thieves. Today, however, we have been lulled into a false sense of security about the darkness and we fail to understand that within each of us is a heart of darkness which we keep locked away so that no one— not even ourselves—can see the dangers that lurk within.

And so we stand at the threshold of the Holy and Great Week where the Passion is about to begin in the darkness of Gethsemane. For the Word of God took flesh so that He could bear our infirmities and share in the fallen state of our condition. Christ kneels in the darkness of the Garden preparing to be betrayed by a kiss. In this heart of darkness the innocent and unblemished lamb stands ready to be
sacrificed for us. For Christ came in order to walk with each of us through the darkness—to take our hand and lead us into the darkness of our own souls.

The Light came into the darkness so that all may be able to see. The Light came into the darkness so that evil could be exposed. The Light came into the darkness and the darkness could not comprehend the Light.

Christ went to be sacrificed on the Cross so that by walking through the darkness of His Passion He may offer all of us His Precious and Life-giving Body and Blood—so that we may be in Him and He in us. Christ Jesus, indwelling within us takes our hands and walks with us into the depths of the darkness of our hearts. When we partake of the Eucharistic elements, we descend with Christ into the Gethsemane of the inner chambers of the soul—the doors of which we have locked ourselves and which the demons guard.

The demons, however, are cast out by the presence of Christ within us—the locks are undone, and the doors thrown open. The Light of Christ permeates the darkness, bathing it with a salvific illumination that washes away the accumulation of iniquity. Our heart of darkness becomes a chamber of light.

And so we stand once again at the onset of another Holy and Great Week, either ignorant or afraid of the darkness within us. In either case, our souls become a home for demons who live in the darkness and feed on sin. If, however, we understand the danger of the darkness and overcome our fear of it, then we can stand with Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, take His hand, and walk with Him through the darkness of the Passion and fall headlong into our own being.

In this journey into the darkness, Christ takes our suffering upon Himself and ultimately descends into Hades, a place of ultimate darkness that is shattered in the lightening flash of Christ’s divinity. As He reached out His most precious hand to Adam and Eve, He too stretches forth His hand to us when we partake of His Body and Blood. If we choose to take hold of that hand, He too will lift us up from darkness to light; from death to life.

Rev. Fr. Demetrios E. Tonias is the pastor of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Concord, NH, one of many "Share the Light Parishes" around the country that partner with the Orthodox Christian Network in a cooperative effort to build an effective media outreach for Orthodoxy. Fr. Demetrios, whose articles and sermons regularly appear on MyOCN.net, holds an M.Div. and Th.M. from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program in historical theology at Boston College. You can read more written by Fr. Demetrios and listen to his parish's OCN-produced Internet radio station, by visiting Holy Trinity's Web site.

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