When The Night Feels Too Dark...Look Here

I haven’t met a child yet who wasn’t afraid of the dark.  Was that ever you?   

I distinctly remember one moment in my life where I panicked in the darkness.  I was at Falcon Youth Camp and I think I must’ve been about 8 years old.  I went to camp by myself that year—there were no other children from our church who went, so I was in a dorm room with other boys I didn’t really know.  I remember sleeping in a bunk bed, and it seems I was on the top bunk. 

I remember the room had several bunks in it, with dark brown paneling on the walls and no windows.  I remember going to bed that night after having taken a shower—and I remember waking up in the middle of the night to pitch-black darkness.  Do you know that kind of darkness?  It was can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face dark and I remember that it took my breath. 

I remember being disoriented—I think I was sleeping so hard that I temporarily forgot where I was… and because it was so dark, I couldn’t see to regain my senses.  Laying there in that bed, with all those boys sleeping around me, I panicked.  I sat up quickly and began to move around—I let out a quiet “help?!” 

If you understand the Bible to be a work of divinely-inspired literature AND a work of art in itself, like I do, then you can expect to notice recurring themes that stand out like broad brushstrokes in a painting. 

Darkness is a recurring idea throughout both the Old and New Testament.  It goes all the way back to the very beginning at creation.  Do you remember that? 

Genesis 1:1-5  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  ² Now the earth was without shape and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep, but the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water.  ³ God said, "Let there be light." And there was light!  ⁴ God saw that the light was good, so God separated the light from the darkness.  ⁵ God called the light "day" and the darkness "night." There was evening, and there was morning, marking the first day. 

Darkness in the beginning was associated with shapelessness and emptiness.  In the original language, the author used the terms Tohu Vabohu, which speak of chaos and utter confusion.   

The picture of the primordial universe was one painted in deep black brushstrokes, with red undertones and deep hues.  It was chaos and emptiness, and characterized by darkness. 

And darkness became a symbol for chaos, confusion, and emptiness.  Notice the 9^th plague that God sent on Egypt. 

Exodus 10:21-23   ²¹ The LORD said to Moses, "Extend your hand toward heaven so that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness so thick it can be felt."  ²² So Moses extended his hand toward heaven, and there was absolute darkness throughout the land of Egypt for three days.  ²³ No one could see another person, and no one could rise from his place for three days. 

In that story, darkness is not only about chaos, confusion, and emptiness, but it’s also a form of judgment.  Pharoah had consistently disobeyed the command of God to let the people of Israel go, and God answered him with this velvety-curtain of darkness over the whole nation of Egypt. 

Can you imagine the confusion that happened when that darkness first settled on the land?   

And darkness was more than just chaos, confusion, emptiness and judgment.  Darkness also came to symbolize death. 

Job had nearly reached the point of suicide.  Having lost all that he owned and all that he held dear, he despaired even of life and told his friends… 

Job 10:20-22   ²⁰ Are not my days few? Cease, then, and leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,  ²¹ before I depart, never to return, to the land of darkness and the deepest shadow,  ²² to the land of utter darkness, like the deepest darkness, and the deepest shadow and disorder. 

The book of Job is literally filled with references to darkness as Job tried to make sense of all the tragedy that happened to him. 

And there’s more—darkness is about fear, and the enemy’s pursuit, and wicked people… it’s about foolishness and injustice and violence and oppression and anxiety and…  sin. 

The book of Isaiah pictures the people of Israel deeply entrenched in sin—like a prison with no windows.  Listen to his description. 

Isaiah 59:1-10  Look, the LORD's hand is not too weak to deliver you; his ear is not too deaf to hear you.  ² But your sinful acts have alienated you from your God; your sins have caused him to reject you and not listen to your prayers.  ³ For your hands are stained with blood and your fingers with sin; your lips speak lies, your tongue utters malicious words.  ⁴ No one is concerned about justice; no one sets forth his case truthfully. They depend on false words and tell lies; they conceive of oppression and give birth to sin.  ⁵ They hatch the eggs of a poisonous snake and spin a spider's web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, a poisonous snake is hatched.  ⁶ Their webs cannot be used for clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are sinful; they commit violent crimes.  ⁷ They are eager to do evil, quick to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are sinful; they crush and destroy.  ⁸ They are unfamiliar with peace; their deeds are unjust. They use deceitful methods, and whoever deals with them is unfamiliar with peace.  ⁹ For this reason deliverance is far from us and salvation does not reach us. We wait for light, but see only darkness; we wait for a bright light, but live in deep darkness.  ¹⁰ We grope along the wall like the blind, we grope like those who cannot see; we stumble at noontime as if it were evening. Though others are strong, we are like dead men. 

Isaiah paints a vivid, dark portrait of sin.  It’s oppressive, murderous, deceitful, and destructive.  It covers the earth like a thick blanket and people walk about in it every day, stumbling and falling, causing their own pain and injuring other people.  This darkness is tangible—you can feel it. 

Paul describes sin in terms of darkness in the book of Romans.   

Romans 1:21-32  ²¹ For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened.  ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools  ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.  ²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.  ²⁵ They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.  ²⁶ For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones,  ²⁷ and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed in their passions for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.  ²⁸ And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done.  ²⁹ They are filled with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice. They are rife with envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility. They are gossips,  ³⁰ slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents,  ³¹ senseless, covenant-breakers, heartless, ruthless.  ³² Although they fully know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them. 

Does that sound familiar at all?  As Paul describes the filth and sinfulness of that culture, I can’t help but see the same qualities in our culture today. And while darkness is about chaos and confusion and judgment and death—violence and oppression and emptiness and sin—people of this world continue to stumble about, like the blind leading the blind, living their pitiful lives in the depths of their own sin. 

The world was, and still is, in a terrible fix.  The lights are off, but some of us have awakened in the middle of the night and we’re disoriented… we don’t know where we are, we can’t remember how we got to where we are in this life of sin, but something on the inside is panicking and maybe like me, there’s a voice welling up inside of you that whispers “help?!” 

John 1:1-5  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  ² He was in the beginning with God.  ³ All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  ⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  ⁵ The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. 

Sitting up in the bed early that morning, in the deep darkness of that camp dorm and in my own panic, I remembered my trusty Ironman watch.  It had a backlight.  I’m not sure what made me remember that, or what caused me to instinctively reach to my right arm and press that button,  

but in the middle of the night,  

in the middle of that disorienting darkness,  

that little backlight illuminated the whole room just enough that my fears were allayed.  It wasn’t a lot of light, and I couldn’t see everything,  

but when you’re living in the deepest darkness,  

when the shadows have stolen your very breath, 

when panic has seized your soul,  

even a sliver of light—like when the hall light beam falls into the bedroom— 

even that sliver of light is enough to chase away the darkness. 

Thanks be to God that LIGHT has shone in our darkness, and that while it might have begun in the isolated shelter of a stable, that light has spread to every continent to overcome the shadows of this world.