Light in Darkness

Light in Darkness

After her husband Jim was killed by the Auca people of Ecuador in 1956, Elisabeth Elliot made a decision that shocked the world: she went back. Not in revenge or desperation, but in love — taking her young daughter Jane and living with the very tribe that had murdered her husband. Over time, several of the men who had carried out the killing came to faith. Dayuma, an Auca woman, was baptized and became a witness to her own people. Elisabeth later wrote: 'The darkness is very dark. But it has not overcome the light.' She had watched the light break through in the most impossible of places, and she believed — she had seen — that darkness never has the final word.

John's prologue sets up the cosmic drama of the entire Gospel in a single verse. The word translated 'overcome' also means 'comprehend' or 'seize' — darkness could not grasp or extinguish what the Light brought. This has practical weight for every day lived in a broken world. Every suffering, every injustice, every night of the soul stands against the same promise: it has not overcome. Present tense — a continuing truth. The light is still shining. It shone through a stable in Bethlehem when the world expected a palace. It shone on Easter morning when the disciples expected only a sealed tomb. It is shining still — in your circumstances, in your generation, in the specific darkness you are facing today. The darkness may be very dark. But it has not overcome the light, and it never will.