Tag: darkness

Sitting in darkness

But God’s light breaks in

Luke 1:68-79 Zechariah’s song:

Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited and redeemed his people.

He has sent us a mighty Savior from the royal line of his servant David,

Just as he promised through his holy prophets long ago. …

So we can serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness

For as long as we live. …

Because of God’s tender mercy,

The morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,

To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,

And to guide us to the path of peace.

Do you, too, “sit in darkness”? How would you describe that darkness: anxiety and worry, fears for the future, stuckness over wounds in the past and harmful habits in the present? Do you, too, long for guidance to a path of peace?

Shutterstock: Vlue

Last week the prophet Zechariah from the Old Testament spoke to us about a Day of the Lord bringing life-giving waters to our parched souls. Five hundred years later, the Holy Spirit prophesied through another Zechariah, a priest, father of John the Baptist (Luke 1:67), this time about the gift of light breaking through our darkness.

Three months before Zechariah gave this prophecy, the angel Gabriel informed Mary, newly pregnant with Jesus, that another miraculous pregnancy had taken place: her barren elderly relative Elizabeth, Zechariah’s wife, also expected a baby!

Mary hurried to visit Elizabeth, who by the Spirit recognized the baby growing in Mary’s womb as her Lord. “You are blessed because you believed,” Elizabeth told Mary, in contrast to her husband, who had spent the last six months unable to speak because of his early, shocked disbelief in Gabriel’s message to him. Mary responded with a song of praise we call the Magnificat. We’ll look at this song next week.

After his son John was born, Zechariah prophesied that his child would prepare the way for the Lord, a mighty Savior who would provide salvation and forgiveness of sins to his people. Quoting Malachi and Isaiah, Zechariah foretold Mary’s baby’s birth as light from heaven about to break upon them, offered to the dark world through the tender mercies of God.

Two surprise visits from the angel Gabriel. Two miraculous pregnancies. Two sons. Four celebratory songs. A host of angels. Multiple shepherds. Two elderly witnesses. The fulfillment of ancient covenants and prophecies.

Luke compressed unspeakable wonder into the first two chapters of his Gospel. No wonder Mary needed to take a step back and ponder all that had broken into her heretofore unremarkable experience (Luke 2:19).

Advent offers us space to do the same: to consider the marvels of her baby’s first coming and what they mean to us. To open our hearts in hope of receiving the Spirit’s tender mercies. To welcome his light into our darkness. To deepen our hope as we anticipate his return in glory. And to find the path to the Prince of peace.

Shine Jesus Shine, Graham Kendrick

Hide and seek

Hide and seek

But God’s work is revealed in his light

John 3:19-21 God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see God at work in what they are doing.

I just spent a weekend with my grandchildren. They love, love, love playing hide and seek, from the baby to the six-year-old. The two three-year-olds can’t bear for long the tension of being hidden: “Here I am! I’m here!” The six-year-old can wait a long time in his increasingly inventive hiding places.

Shutterstock: A3pfamily

In the course of their play, this six-year-old knocked his sister to the ground. Immediately he said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” and rushed to help her get up. I noticed, though, that minutes after she was happily off chasing her cousin, my grandson stood in place, tears pooling in his eyes. When I asked him what was wrong, the tears overflowed.

“I didn’t want to hurt Talita,” he sobbed. “I did something bad.”

I had a choice: Try to convince him that accidents happen and not to worry about it; Talita was fine. Or honor his sense of wrongdoing. “Sweetheart,” I said, “there’s something we can do when we’ve done wrong.”

“What?” he asked, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

“We can tell God what we did and ask him to forgive us. When we do that, he promises to make our hearts clean. Would you like to do that?”

After doing so, he stood for a moment looking at the floor, then gave me a brilliant smile and ran to find his sister and cousins.

And I had the joy of seeing God at work, lifting my grandson’s distress from his shoulders.

You and I have the same opportunity: to bring our wrongdoing to the light so we can receive forgiveness and restoration of our joy and freedom. Often this requires restitution as well for the way we have hurt someone.

We may think we’re protecting ourselves when we hide our sin, but in fact we’re internalizing the harm we did, thus dimming our internal light, making it harder to see our own hearts clearly. We need the Holy Spirit to shine his light, to seek and find and deal with what is hurting us inside.

If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to God, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness (1 John1:8-9).