When Light Enters the Darkroom

In the days before digital photography, photographers developed their images in darkrooms — small, sealed rooms bathed in dim red safelight. The photographic paper sat in chemical baths, holding a latent image invisible to the eye. Nothing could be seen until the moment of exposure. When the enlarger clicked on and white light poured through the negative, the image began to appear — slowly, unmistakably — shadows forming into faces, landscapes, moments frozen in silver halide crystals.

The image had always been encoded in the negative. It existed before the light revealed it. But without that beam of light passing through, the paper would remain blank forever. The darkroom needed the light not just to illuminate, but to make real what was already true.

John tells us that the Word — the Logos — existed before all things. "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made." The logic, the design, the very grammar of creation was already there, embedded in the mind of God. But humanity sat in a kind of darkroom, unable to perceive the image.

Then the light clicked on. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." God did not shout instructions from outside the darkroom. He stepped into it. He became the light passing through, developing the image of divine love onto the paper of human experience — so that everyone willing to look could finally see the face of the Father.