The Twelve Hours Story.

John 11.9-10.

All my life, whenever I’ve heard people teach about Jesus’s parables, they tend to note, “But there are no parables in John.” Which is rubbish; Jesus uses a number of parables in John. In fact I would argue it’s because of this false belief in John’s lack of parables, the parables which are totally in that gospel get skimmed over—“Well that’s not a parable; that’s just something Jesus said by way of teaching.” No dum-dum, it’s an analogy describing God’s kingdom which you’re meant to figure out, so it’s clearly a parable. And you’re acting like one of those people with plugged ears and closed minds.

Take fr’instance Jesus’s Twelve Hour Story. It’s rare you’ll find a biblical commentary which treats it like the parable it is, and instead treats it as some strange, hard-to-understand thing Jesus says in the middle of the Raising Lazarus Story. It’s only hard to understand if you’re not even trying to understand it. Here’s the thing he said:

John 11.9-10 KWL

9Jesus answers, “Aren’t there 12 hours in the day?

When someone walks in the day, they¹ don’t stumble.

For this person sees the world’s light.

10When someone walks in the night, they¹ stumble.

For the light isn’t in them.¹”

By now Christians oughta know who the world’s light is: Jesus. Do you remember what was happening when Jesus said “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world”? Jn 9.5 It was right before he cured a man born blind. It wasn’t just a metaphor to remind his students he can cure those whose only experience is living in the dark. The king of God’s kingdom personally exemplifies what we’re meant to do to bring hope, healing, and truth into a world which’d much rather stay in the dark because their deeds are evil. Jn 3.19-21

All Jesus’s parables describe God’s kingdom, and this saying obviously describes it too: When we walk in the day, we walk in the light; we don’t stumble. When we walk in the night, we’re not in the light, so of course we stumble. Stay in the light!

Twelve hours in the day.

In Jesus’s day, timekeeping worked differently. Daylight was measured in horae, ὧραι/óre, “hours”; nighttime was measured in vigilæ, φυλακαί/fylaké, “watches.” Hours were a twelfth of the daytime: Sunrise to noon was six hours, and noon to sundown was six hours. Watches were a quarter of the nighttime: Sundown to midnight was two watches, and midnight to sunrise was two watches.

Jesus told this story during winter, when daylight hours are obviously less than 12 of our hours long. And let’s say Jesus told this story on 1 February, when southern Israel’s daylight hours were 10:41 long. Well, a twelfth of that time is 53 minutes, 2¹⁄₁₂ seconds—so yes, that’s how long their hours were at that point in the year. We wouldn’t call that 12 hours; they would. So whenever some silly person objects, “Well sometimes there aren’t 12 hours in the day…” have fun explaining ancient timekeeping.

Jesus says this to point out there was a definite (though not fixed, y’notice) length of time in which the world’s light would operate. “As long as I am in the world,” Jesus had said in chapter 9, he’s that light. Thereafter, we have to be that light. I know, I know; we suck. Jesus does a massively better job of this than his followers. But still.

As light, we have to fight and expose darkness. In the United States, Christians assume “darkness” consists of culture-war stuff; anything which threatens white supremacy, although depending on your state, white supremacists might try to disguise the racism as other things. “Wokeness” is their current favorite. But by darkness, Jesus means the works of the devil; anything which steals, kills, destroys, and lies. Anything evil—like those white supremacists.

So when we walk, we gotta do it in the light. Stick to Jesus, proclaim his kingdom, enlarge his territory, expose evil. Be consistent and you shouldn’t stumble. But if you’re only pretending to be in the light, while hypocritically walking in darkness, you’re gonna stumble a lot, because there’s no light. And as Jesus points out, you aren’t light. Even if you carried one of the oil lamps of Jesus’s day, or burn up your phone’s battery by using its flashlight, that’s hardly enough light to see everything. Even the most overcast days are better than our flashlights. Stay in the light!

In context, Jesus tells this parable as he’s explaining to his students why they’re going to visit Lazarus. He has to go wake Lazarus from his “sleep.” Jn 11.11 He has to go be the world’s light to Lazarus’s grieving family. We Christians need to be like Jesus, and cure the sick, comfort those who mourn, speak truth though surrounded by liars, and shine God’s light into a very dark world.