This article is by Randy Walker:
A few months ago a piece ran in the newspaper: “Airport installs new runway lighting, 25 percent brighter.” This was hailed as a great thing. Of course, if you are a passenger in a plane and it is night and the plane is about to land, you want the pilot to be able to see the runway. Nobody wants a plane crash. But in my opinion, there was another side to this story — you might call it the shadow side — that the writer failed to report.
On the first Sunday of Advent, we lit the first candle in our Advent wreath and entered the darkest time of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere. The following are some thoughts on the value of darkness
Darkness is a word that is used to mean different things. And mostly it has a negative connotation. The writer of the fourth Gospel in particular uses darkness as an image for the path of willful ignorance and sin taken by those who refuse the salvation offered by Jesus. Of course, this is a path we Christians should never follow.
But are there other meanings of darkness, and maybe even times and places where darkness is a good thing?
Darkness cannot even be defined except in terms of light, nor light except in terms of darkness. They are two faces of the same mystery and we can even say that each is meaningless without the other.
Consider the Advent wreath. The wreath is a circle of evergreen representing eternal life, and the candles represent the Light that is coming into the world.
Some of us light Advent candles at home in our dimly lit living rooms, or set candles in our front windows, looking out over the yard toward the street, beacons of warmth and welcome and comfort amid the chill and darkness of the oncoming winter. Would our candles flame so brightly under the blazing sun of July? A candle shines the brightest when there is darkness all around. Therefore we may give thanks for darkness, even as we wait for the light, for God made both.
God bless the darkness that was upon the face of the deep in the very beginning, and the darkness that is still there even now in the deepest ocean trench, and the strange creatures that dwell there, in the coldest and deepest places on earth.
God bless the darkness that he separated from the light, calling the darkness night and the light day. And bless the darkness of sleep in which we find rest and renewal.
God bless the darkness of the Virgin’s womb, which nurtured the first earthly stirrings of the Son of man, and the darkness of your own mother’s womb which was your first home on this earth.
God bless the darkness of the skies over Bethlehem in which a star guided the Magi, and the darkness over the fields where an angel appeared to lowly shepherds guarding their flocks. And God bless the darkness of the skies over Bath County, Virginia — far from the lights of airport runways or office buildings or shopping centers — where many years ago a young boy from the city saw the Milky Way for the first time and was astonished by God’s handiwork. For it was God who made the Pleiades and Orion and turns deep darkness into morning and darkens the day into night.
God bless the darkness inside the jars at the wedding in Cana where water was transformed into wine, and the darkness of the unconscious mind in which poets and artists and painters and writers conceive their most audacious ideas, and the darkness of a painting called “The Starry Night,” made by a man who used dark and light colors to transform pain into beauty.
God bless the eyes of the man blind since birth, who saw only darkness not because he had sinned or his parents had sinned, but so that, in him, Jesus could manifest the works of God.
God bless the night in Gethsemane when Jesus did not flee from the darkest hour in his life, and God bless all the saints and martyrs who did not swerve from the path of righteousness even at the cost of their lives.
God bless the darkness of the tomb of Lazarus of Bethany who lay dead for four days, so that the power of God might be made manifest, and darkness of the rock-hewn tomb in the garden on the Saturday night before Easter.
When we can learn to tolerate this kind of darkness without resisting, without flinching, like Jesus in the garden, it brings the light of resurrection that much closer.
It can also increase our ability to appreciate and embrace life. As Leo Tolstoy said: “All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.” When we have passed out of a long dark tunnel into the light of a sunny afternoon, it makes the light all that much sweeter.
In the movie House of Dark Shadows, the vampire Barnabas Collins receives a medical treatment that temporarily reverses his vampirism. For the first time in two centuries he is able to go out in the light of day. He meets a nice young woman and they go for a walk on a sunny afternoon in the New England countryside and talk about getting married. For a while he dares to dream, that he, a vampire, could live life as a normal man. After 200 years of darkness, how incredibly sweet those few weeks of light and life and love must have been.
We might not sleep in a casket, but there are times in life when we feel like we’ll never see the sun again. The answers are not forthcoming wherever we turn. We feel like we have been cast into the pit. In regions dark and deep, our prayers go unanswered. This darkness seems neither sweet nor beautiful, nor a blessing, nor part of some divine tapestry. It just hurts and the pain goes on and on.
Whether we know it or not, God is working out of our conscious sight, as he works in a seed buried within the darkness of the earth in the cold dead days before the first warm breath of spring.
God’s promise to us is that the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining. As the Advent wreath is a circle of evergreens symbolizing never-ending life, we trust that we will eventually circle out of the darkness back into the light.
As my friend Marian McConnell writes in her song “Like The Moon,”
What if the sun seems to disappear and I’m in the dark with my fears,
It’s an eclipse, when the world gets in the way, blocking out the sun’s warm rays,
I have faith that the universe will spin, and I’ll be in the light once again.
Whether we are in a period of light and warmth and joy, or darkness and cold and misery, let us, therefore, acknowledge that God is always at work and trust that the lighting of the first Advent candle is a true symbol of the Light that is coming into the world. Passing through the dark and light times in our lives, we ask him to open our eyes to the beauty that is in the contrast.
Randy Walker is a musician and writer in Roanoke, Va. He is music director of St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church.
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This was so powerful, for me at this day and time. The Holy Spirit took me to Psalm 139 :12. I started to make a deep study, because I ma going through a dark period in my life I was then led to do research about Darknee versus Light. I am just amazed what I learnt. This writing is one of the last of my readings about this subject. This underlines what I ve learnt and than you for this.
God is so faithful. I have a totally different approach regarding this dark period in my life, now. I can befriend the darknees, now and get closer to the LIGHT.
Thank You.
May God bless you.
Cora le Roux