Being afraid of the dark isn’t really the issue.
We naturally prefer a lit room because the light exposes obstacles and unknown variables. We tend to enjoy being able to see where we are going.
But when the lights are turned out, we tend to freeze up. If we move at all it’s with great caution and care. It’s not the dark we’re afraid of; it’s the unknowns that lurk in the darkness. Our imagination can run us wild with a combination of our worst fears, mind tricks, and the power of suggestion. Scream, ‘Spider!’ in a room filled with people and darkness, and you’ll hear screams and shrieks from every corner.
We huddle in the darkness, not moving about, sometimes holding hands and arms, whispering and talking, mostly just to hear someone else’s voice because we don’t want to be alone, and it’s in utter darkness when we feel most isolated.
Vin Diesel stars in a movie called ‘Pitch Black’, a sci-fi flick about a world whose carnivorous flying inhabitants thrive in darkness. If you’ve seen it, then you know the bloodthirsty predators in this gory thriller die when exposed to prolonged sunlight. The hero, a renegade convict, leads a dwindling band of frightened and virtually helpless individuals back to their ship, and ultimately off the planet to safety.
Here’s the funny part – he’s blind. Actually, he can ‘see’ in the dark, but he’s still considered blind because he can’t see in sunlight. What makes it funny to me – in a twisted sort of way, I suppose – is the fact that everyone in the troupe but a teenage girl and a priest are killed trying to get home. Matt. 15:14 says: “…If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit."
If we stay still long enough, not move around very much, we can grow accustomed to being in the dark, to a point that we can believe we don’t need the light.
Sunday mornings are the only morning that I awaken before the rest of my family. I like to be at the church early in order to prepare, so my alarm is set for six o’clock. Since my eyesight is poor anyway, my Sunday morning rituals are usually done in the dark; I shower, shave, and dress (I’ve usually laid my clothes out the previous night) without turning on the lights. I have grown accustomed to having no lights on.
There have been a couple of mornings when I would turn on the bathroom light to put my contacts in and do my hair and realize the outfit I’ve put on – and quickly change.
The People of Israel were cut off from God’s sovereignty, and left destitute, leaderless, and without a country. They were, in fact, in utter darkness - and they had managed to grow accustomed to it.
But they had not forgotten that God, through Isaiah, had made a Promise: “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light—a light that will shine on all who live in the land where death casts its shadow (Isaiah 9:2 NLT).
About eight years ago, I remember a thunderstorm knocking the electricity out at our house. It was about 10:30 at night, and I spent the next couple of hours frantically looking for candles and matches and flashlights – anything to dispel the darkness. When I found the lighter and held it to the wick, I remember the power of that small flame as it kept the darkness at a distance. There was a somewhat euphoric sense of peace, even in a ravaging thunderstorm, which exuded from that small candle.
When a candle is lit in a darkened room full of people, you will find that the mass of bodies tend to want to gravitate to the candle, to bask in its warmth and to be able to see.
That ‘Great Light’ that God promised to the People of Israel came in the form of the Christ Child, and during the life of Jesus, people gravitated to Him to bask in His Warmth and often found that when they were close to Jesus they could ‘see’ because of the Light that shone from His teachings and His character.
Jesus was, and is, the Promise Kept.
Here’s something to ponder: Is there ever a moment when you have no shadow? The answer is ‘yes’, and in only two situations.
When we are literally bathed in light, immersed in beams from every angle and direction, the shadows are seemingly burned away because they can’t exist where light is. Interesting, however, is the fact that shadows exist BECAUSE of the light.
The second is when we are swallowed up in utter darkness, and no light is in our presence to ward away the shadows. Everything around us is darkness, and we, ourselves, become shadow.
It would be pretty stupid to hear someone in a pitch black room say, “I can see perfectly,” or “there’s plenty of light” or “I am NOT standing in a dark room.”
How many fingers am I holding up?
John said, “…God is light and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness. We are not living in the truth. But if we are living in the light of God's presence, just as Christ is, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from every sin.” – 1 John 1:5-7 NLT
The birth of Jesus made it possible for any and all who ask for God’s grace and forgiveness to escape the darkness, the void. He lived, taught, loved, then died, then battled death ‘to the death’, rising victoriously, all for the sake of Redemption, to bring us out of the dark.
It’s an either/or. Either you’re living in the light of God’s presence, or you’re swallowed up in darkness. And it’s when you’re standing next to the light, your own shadows are revealed.
So whoever has God's Son has life; whoever does not have his Son does not have life. – 1 John 5:12 NLT
One of my former teens who is now in college texted me about the seemingly vacated status of the campus during finals week. No one was walking around, in the Student Commons Building, horsing around. He said it was kind of eerie, making him wonder if this sense of eerie-ness is what it would feel like after the Rapture.
His text made me ask the question: “Which would be worse – the Wrath of God, or the Absence of God?”
We tend to think that the wrath of God would be the worst of all, when in reality, God’s absence is the absence of light, and thus, the epitome of Hell.
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