Darkness

"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned" (Isaiah 9:2).

Today is the shortest day of the year, at least in our part of the world. It's the day when darkness comes earlier and leaves later than any other time. It's a day that, for many, symbolizes the season. It's not all sweetness and light. For some, this time of year is dark and difficult, and for others, life is one dark day after another. Advent and Christmas are just more dark days.

The people of Israel in Isaiah's time, and in the time of Jesus as well, understood what it was to walk in darkness. In Isaiah's time, one bad king after another along with disobedience on the part of the population, had created the dark time. They had been oppressed by foreign powers, due, at least in part according to the prophets, to their refusal to follow God's way. If they wanted to determine their own way, God would allow that and step back. The people were walking in darkness. By the beginning of the first century, the Roman Empire had taken over tiny Israel and they would not be an independent nation again for two thousand years. Roman rule was difficult; the pax romana (Roman peace) was maintained at the end of the spear. Best just to keep your head down, pay your taxes, and try to stay out of the way of the Roman soldiers. The people walked in darkness and despair.

When we encounter dark times, whether as individuals or as a culture, there is a desperation that begins to grow for the light to shine. I believe that's a large part of what we're currently experiencing as a culture in the United States: a desperate longing for the light, though we can't seem to put words to it. So we turn to politics for the answers, or we look to celebrities for the answer, or we put our hope in science or education or technology. I believe much of the division in our nation (and even in our world) is due to differing ideas about where we can find the light. What will dispel this darkness?

We do the same thing in our personal lives. People turn to drugs or to alcohol or to serial relationships or to possessions or any number of things to try to find the light. The fallenness of our world causes us to look everywhere except to the source of all light. All of those things let us down. They may provide something that looks like light for a brief time, but it never lasts. We act as if the power has gone out in our homes and we pick up every item we can find hoping it will shine some light. But the toaster will not gives us light. The potted plant will not give us light. The book on the nightstand will not give us light. And all the while, lying beside us or perhaps right in our hand, is a flashlight that could give light, if only we would turn it on. Yet we stubbornly persist in trying everything else to find light. What will it take for us to turn on the light?

Because the people were walking in darkness, and because they stubbornly refused the light that had already been provided, the light that was at hand, God himself stepped down into history in the form of a baby, born in a manger, sleeping in poverty, with nothing to claim for himself. Even his bed was borrowed! And that baby then grew up to be, as John puts it, "the true light that gives light to everyone" (John 1:9). What will it take? When will we learn? On this Longest Night, this darkest day, what will cause us to turn to the true Light, the only one whose brightness can forever dispel the darkness? What will it take?