Waiting in the Darkness Part 1: Let There Be Darkness

When I was making my final preparations to hike the Appalachian Trail last April, my wife and I drove down to Virginia. She helped me set-up my little one man tent at a campground near the trail, and we had lunch together, and then she drove off. That time of leave-taking had to come, of course, because my plan was to hike the trail by myself. But it was at that point that I began to think that solitude isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. As I watched her little Ford station wagon pull out of that campground, I’d never felt so lonely in my life.

Soon I would feel even more lonely: as the sun set, and the darkness gathered, and the mysterious sounds of the night began to surround me. It got pretty bad that first night: utterly lonely, waiting in the darkness, longing for the dawn.

I’ll tell you something that never occurred to me that night: sometimes the darkness can be a blessing. Sometimes loneliness and longing are the pre-condition for new life. I mean, the loneliness could’ve ended real quickly. I could’ve begged Cora to stay. In fact, an hour down the road she almost turned around. And I had friends only 30 minutes away who would’ve come to get me just like that. But I needed to be alone. I needed to learn that I could build a campfire. I needed to learn that I could navigate in the woods. I needed to learn that God had placed resources within me that can be accessed when the going gets tough. And sometimes the only way to discover these things is when you’re alone, in the dark, and you have nothing to rely on other than the presence of God, and the resources which God has placed within you.

Advent is a time of darkness. These four Sundays before Christmas come when the northern hemisphere is moving into the darkest time of the year. The weather is gloomy. The nights are long. And there is an inner darkness as well because as Christmas approaches we miss loved ones who’ve passed away, or live far away. We long for the joy and warmth of Christmases past in homes that no longer exist and times that were so wonderful that now they seem like a dreamland. I mean, I can close my eyes and smell the aromas of my grandparents’ house; I can see Grandma in the kitchen and I can hear Grandpa’s voice and it’s so real that I don’t want to open my eyes and discover that it is no longer so. The holidays can bring a profound sense of longing and sometimes we wonder if this time of year can ever be happy again.

Advent is a time of darkness. Advent is about waiting in the darkness. And sometimes, in our waiting and our longing, we find hidden blessings even in the dark.

We long for homes and families. The people of Jerusalem longed for their city. More than 2500 years ago, Jerusalem was destroyed. The city and the Temple that some thought God would protect for ever was no more. And the people felt utterly abandoned. God had abandoned them. I mean, when Cora drove off on that April afternoon there was profound loneliness, but by the next day I was hiking and I was journaling and I was beginning to recover a sense of the presence of God. In other words, my loneliness was mitigated by the sense of God’s presence. But there was no sense of God’s presence for those folks who wept amidst the ruins of Jerusalem. God had abandoned them. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,” they cried. “You have hidden your face from us.” “Come back, God,” they seemed to be saying; “come back!” Their home, God’s home, had become a wilderness. There was no comfort; no hope; only darkness (see Isaiah 64:1,7).

The irony is that the people of Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside had to pass through that time of darkness. For them, it was part of the process of salvation. At some point during this Advent season you’ll probably hear that great passage from Isaiah that says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” And then, of course, it goes on to say, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…” and we recognize the prophecy of the birth of Messiah (see Isaiah 9:2-7). Messiah was the great light that the people would see, but first they had to walk in the darkness! First they had to pass through a wilderness time when they were forced to let go of ideas and institutions and ways of living which had maybe once been helpful, but had now led them down the path to destruction. In order to transition into new life, you have to walk in the darkness for a while. Casting aside the things that once brought comfort, sometimes we have to wait in the darkness. Isaiah 64:4 says that God “works for those who wait for him.” The journey toward new life involves walking and waiting in the darkness.

Canadians and Americans and people have affluence generally have trouble with this. We don’t like the darkness. We want it always to be light. We’ve become so accustom to the good times that we want to let the good times roll, always. The moments of sadness, and the melancholy, and the grief, and the despair that are all part of real living are things that we want to just airbrush away. We have botoxed and prozaced our way to imagining that life can be an endless stream of wrinkle-free happiness. You know what? It’s not. In a world where terrorists are attacking and life savings are evaporating and polar ice caps are melting and there’s a state that’s failing and it’s called Pakistan and it has nuclear weapons; in that kind of world, I’m not concerned that people get depressed once and a while. I’m worried about the people who never get depressed. I mean, having episodes of sadness and darkness and melancholy might be a sign of health in a world like ours. I mean, it’s been a horrible week. You think of the terror attacks in Mumbai, and the stabbing at a child’s birthday party in Oshawa, and that incident at the Wal-mart on Long Island where folks stampeded through the doors just before the 5 am opening time, and an employee was trampled to death. No wonder people get depressed from time to time!

Now I’m not talking about chronic depression. I’m not talking about the sense of darkness and despair that lingers for months or even years. Chronic depression is a sickness of the soul that should be attended to, but I want to suggest to you that chronic happiness is also. It should tell us something that among our greatest politicians and poets and artists are people who knew those times of darkness. It may be that the creativity and imagination which help the world to move forward toward the light are born in those darkest hours just before the dawn.

There is a tradition in at least some of the First Nations of North America that before a youth can become a man, he must spend maybe one night, sometimes several days and nights, alone in the wilderness. Among the Cherokee people, a father leads his son into the forest, blindfolds him, and leaves him there to spend the night alone. The boy can’t cry out for help. He can’t tell anyone about his experience. Each lad must come into manhood on his own.

Well of course the boy is terrified. In the darkness he hears all sorts of noises. Is that the wind blowing through the trees? Or is it a bear coming through the bush and about to attack? There must be snakes and wolves prowling about. Perhaps there are even people in the woods who will harm him. All through the night the lad shivers in fear. But he stoically sits there in the forest, never removing his blindfold.

At last the first rays of the sun begin to shine through the fabric which covers his eyes. At that point he removes the blindfold. When he does, he discovers his father sitting beside him. He’s been keeping watch throughout the night.

We are not alone. Even in the darkest nights, God is with us. We can’t see God. Sometimes, like the people of Jerusalem, we feel abandoned by God. But we are not alone. We know God through One whose name is Emmanuel, which means “God-with-us.” We can’t see God, but then, there are many things of great glory that can’t be seen; nevertheless they’re still there. The stars in the daylight: they’re still there. The loved ones whom we miss and we can no longer see in this life: they’re still here. The dawn for which we long in the darkest night: it’s still there; it’s just over the horizon. We can’t see these things, but that’s okay, because we’re Christians: we walk by faith, not by sight. Sometimes we need to wait in the darkness. There are learnings and insights and new possibilities which come only to those who wait in the darkness.

So walk into the darkness of Advent. And wait there for a while. For the dawn will surely come. It was poet James Russell Lowell who wrote:

“And behind the dim unknown,
There stands God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above God’s own.”

Amen.


Text: Isaiah 64:1
Preached by Bruce D. Ervin
First Sunday in Advent
30 November 2008