John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome [comprehended] it.”
An interpretive question we must ask when we come to this passage is what we understand “κατέλαβεν” (translated either “overcome” or “comprehend”) to mean. The word appears again in John’s gospel only in 12:35 where the meaning seems to be “overcome.”
However, it is not beyond John to intend both meanings and by choosing this ambiguous word, he may intend us to read here that the darkness did not comprehend the light (i.e., did not see God in Jesus) and that the darkness was not able to overcome Jesus (i.e., at the crucifixion). Now, if this is the case, John may be very elegantly alluding the climax of the Gospel with this single word here in the fifth verse of his book.
The world did not comprehend God in Christ, and therefore they crucified Him (tried to overcome Him), but that crucifixion (the attempted overcoming of God in Jesus carried out because of they did not grasp the revelation of God in Jesus), far from overcoming the light, actually becomes the supreme shining of the Light into the darkness, the supremely radiant revelation of God in Christ (John 13:31-32).
Thus—when seen through the lens of the resurrection—the moment of the darkness’ ultimate incomprehension of the Father in the Son, which leads to the darkness’ ultimate attempt to overcome the Light, is simultaneously the moment in which the Light of the Father manifested in the Son shines out with definitive, unconquered brilliance.
By using this word, then, John may be leading us already into the mystery of the crucifixion. What is the crucifixion? It is the ultimate instance of the darkness’ attempt to overcome the Light flowing from the darkness’ incomprehension of the Light….What is the crucifixion? It is the ultimate instance of the Light’s victory and over the darkness, leading to the ultimate shining of the Light into that darkness.
And because of this decisive moment—wherein darkness failed to grasp the light of God in Jesus, and the light of God in Jesus shone with greatest, unveiled brilliance into the darkness—because of this decisive moment, that same light is now shining—unconquered, unconquerable, all the brighter when not understood by the darkness into which it continually shines…..And John understands his Gospel itself to be a continuation of that shining….this gospel IS the Light still shining in the darkness……
