In the darkness, forever

Advent, the beginning of the church year, begins in the dark. And how fitting since God, in Christ, works most powerfully in the dark. The Light of the Incarnate Word shines in the darkness.

Here are just a few examples from Scripture...

Nicodemus comes to Jesus At Night.
Jesus gives sight to the blind.
His Passion begins at night in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The sky is darkened at his crucifixion.
He himself goes dark during his death.
He lies in the darkness of the tomb. 

Christ renders Saul of Tarsus (aka, the Apostle Paul) blind on the road to Damascus in order to do His work.

Our world, today, is a dark one. Jesus’s birth didn’t change that. In some ways, it is darker than ever...

But the darkness now takes on a different hue.
For God continues to be born into this darkness. 

The threat of war. Global pandemic. The fraying of our social fabric. The threat of poisoning the soil, sea, and air. The threat of our own imminent deaths. The broken marriage. The child in pain. 

But here’s the thing...

Anyone who has ever truly and authentically known him
has known him - in some strange and mysterious way
better in the dark than anywhere else
for it is in the dark where he seems to visit most often. 

Jesus is in the darkness forever.