BLINDED BY HATE

But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

(1 John 2:11 NIV)

John keeps bringing out the contrasts between those who love and those who hate. He chooses as many ways as possible to remind us of the extremes, while staying close to his principal imagery of the Light of Christ.

For those who let hatred into their hearts, particularly hatred for those they ought to, by all standards, be loving, he says they walk in darkness. But it is a state that is more than simply being in darkness, it is compounded by blindness.

Earlier, he had talked about walking in darkness, saying that those who do not know Christ move in such conditions. Those who do not believe in the Lord, those who have not heard and learned the Gospel, they walk in darkness. But, they can stop walking in darkness when they come to know the Lord. They will see the Light.

But here, he speaks of those who ought to know better. Here, he is talking about those who have been taught about Jesus, who might otherwise be trying to follow the Lord’s teachings, but who have this one “little” problem: they hate a brother.

To have heard the word of the Lord, to know the teachings of Christ, and yet to harbor a hatred against one we should love, that to John is worse than the state of the non-believer. For we have been in the Light, we have known the Light, but our hatred does more than just drive us back out into the darkness, it blinds us, so that we cannot even see.

When we “merely” have not heard and accepted the Word, we are in darkness. But we can still see. There is still the possibility that we will see the flash of Christ’s Light cutting through our life. There is still the possibility that we will step into the Light, and learn of God’s Love.

But when we hate where we should love, we do something worse than walk out of the Light of the Lord. We do something worse than walk into the outer darkness. When we hate, we blind ourselves and step into the darkness.

Not only do we venture out into the territory of the lost, where those who do not know of Christ wander, we venture out among them blindly.

Imagine what that would be like.

Someone who has known the Light and lived in it has let hatred of a sibling in Christ enter their heart. This person has walked out of the Light and into the darkness where people who do not know Christ wander. But our former friend not only cannot see these wanderers, he cannot see the Light in the distance any longer, because he is also blind. A wanderer might see the Light in the distance and start moving toward it, but the one who is blinded by hate does not have that possibility.

I was once at a retreat for college students, and there was to be an evening campfire. I happened to leave the cabin I was in without my flashlight, and unfortunately there was no pathway through the trees to the campfire. From the walkway to the fire, we would have to cross uneven ground, where stones and roots lay waiting to trip us up. But ahead of me, I could see the light of the campfire. So I kept my eyes on that, and tread evenly and carefully, and made it across the whole distance without stumbling and falling.

That real, physical experience taught me much about what it is like to see the Light of Christ in the distance. If the non-believer who truly seeks Light sees it, even from a far distance, Christ will bring them closer, in spite of stumbling stones and tripping roots. All they need do is keep their eyes on the Light.

But when hatred enters our hearts, the effect becomes both internal and external. Not only do we lose our sight, we bring the external darkness with us.

Is this really what we want in our lives?

What can cause us to hate our brother? This is someone we should be loving. Someone who shares love with us and others, someone who has learned to love Christ, learned to live in the Light of the Lord. What could possibly create hatred of such a person?

Well, the truth is that even at the best of times, we all are broken creatures. We are all imperfect. We all still have much to learn about following Christ.

Being imperfect, we can easily fall into envy of a sibling in Christ. Suppose we see a fellow believer who has had some worldly success in their profession. It is easy to envy that success and the seeming benefits that come with it. If we let that envy fester, we can grow from liking the person but resenting the success into hating the person for having what we lack. We have ceased to love the brother because we look at the worldly things they “got” and we forget that what the Lord gives each of us is special to us, and sufficient.

That is one way we can come to hate a brother.

Another is when misunderstandings grow up between fellow believers. Our desire to always be right can deafen us to what the other person has to say. Our desire to be right can cause us to dismiss any overture toward restoring balance and understanding. By refusing to even listen, we harden our hearts, creating a shell that keeps others out – not just the person we disagree with, but others as well. Once we shut someone out, we behave as if they are an enemy, someone to be defended against, no matter what they do or say. And feeling follows behavior. When we start to behave as if we hate someone, we do in fact come to hate that person.

When hatred enters the heart, by whatever means, it brings darkness and blindness to those who had been in the Light.

The one who hates his brother does not know where he is going. The one who hates his brother has lost the capacity to even see the Light in the distance. The one who hates his brother has brought darkness around him.

Isolation will inevitably result from this, because for those who love the Lord, the Light is where they want to be. They don’t want to be drawn back into darkness. Choosing Christ may mean letting go of the one who harbors a hatred of a sibling in Christ. Choosing Christ means to stay in the Light, to learn to love others no matter what.

Who wants to be lost in the darkness and blind to even the glimmer of the Light of the Lord?