THE PEOPLE WHO WALKED IN DARKNESS...

All this past week I found myself returning to the Hebrew scriptures, to the prophet Isaiah’s words, “The people who walked in darkness…” and I realize that he is talking about more than the longest night of the year, but a dark night of the soul that is filled with feelings of paralyzing hopelessness, with no escape.

The people who walked in darkness…

This week, the political fault lines of our nation were drawn as starkly as the theological divisions of our denomination. It feels as if we are without a moral compass as we make sense of right and wrong, of justice and injustice, of respect and accountability. How do we hold these things in tension and find right action and right relationships?

The people who walked in darkness…

This is also a difficult season personally for so many. We become acutely aware of the loss we have experienced. Death of loved ones, the alienation and rejection of family, our personal failures that we carry, causes us to wander in a darkness which can’t be pushed back by Christmas lights.

The people who walked in darkness…

Thank God Isaiah doesn’t leave us hanging in the darkness of despair. He says: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light…for those who lived in a land of deep shadows—LIGHT! Sunbursts of light!

I need to be reminded of this promise this Christmas. Even when we are in the darkest and longest night, the promise of a sunrise will never fail. When things feel most helpless, we will find a strength that we didn’t know was there. When we are feeling most hopeless, there will be an inbreaking of love when we least expect it.

This is what Christmas is all about. God didn’t come when all was right with the world, but in spite of all that was wrong. God showed up to say, “I’m not going to leave you in darkness and despair.”

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Isaiah foretells the birth of Jesus:

“For a child has been born—for us! the gift of a son—for us! He’ll take over the running of the world. His names will be: Amazing Counselor, Strong God, Eternal One, Prince of Wholeness. His ruling authority will grow, and there’ll be no limits to the wholeness he brings.” (Isaiah 9, The Message)

When this truth breaks into our lives, we are filled with a joy that gets us through the darkest days and nights of despair and hopelessness. I am reminded once again that God doesn’t come into the nice, clean, safe, sanitized places of our lives but chooses to meet us in the stench and filth and hazardous conditions of our world. Came into the world as vulnerable as we come, as a baby, to love and be loved, to offer us a wholeness we can’t even imagine.

Seize joy this Christmas. Cling to it as if your life depends upon it, because it does. When the world feels so overwhelming remember: We are the people who walk in darkness, who will see a great light. We will see the star shining in the sky. We will hear the angel voices, singing their songs of peace on earth. And we will experience the birth of love into our lives and into our world yet again.

Joy to the world, my friends. Joy to the world.