Friday, November 29, 2002 "Patrolling the Darkness"

" The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light " Matthew 4:16a

It's hard to believe in the dark. Finding our way through the darkness, we will need markers along the way. We will need signs that remind us we are not alone. We will need to hold within us, for quick recall, word and song that speak and sing of the endurance of love and the goodness of life itself.

One such sign was found in a small home in Germany after World War II. The home had been a place of hiding for Jews trying to flee the horrors of the German death camps. These words had been scratched into the baseboard in one of the bedrooms.

I believe in the sun when it does not shine.
I believe in love when I cannot feel it.
I believe in God when God does not speak.

It is ironic that the very markers we need, if we are to navigate the darkness, often come to us from the darkness itself. The word that inspires, the witness that steadies us, the marker that points the way: the most profound of these comes to us from the darkness itself. Perhaps our own "dark night of the soul" will morph into a handhold, a marker, and a sign along the way for another who travels the darkness.

One of the assurances of Advent is that God yet comes into the darkness of human lives and the events of this world. Advent does not celebrate an historical event (Jesus' birth) but proclaims a timeless truth: God yet comes. This presence named love and grace, compassion and justice, still come to Carol and Tom and Marsha and Bill and Susan and Mark. This presence of God changes lives and calls forth love, even in the darkness. Our best sense of this transforming presence, as Christians, has come to us through Jesus the Christ. This witness and experience of God we claim to be saving for our lives. This witness the darkness cannot overcome.

So, those of us who can; those of us who have done our own time in the darkness; those of us who have felt saved by the light; those of us who have found it hard to believe in the dark: we will patrol the darkness. We will bear this light, for though there is no way around the darkness, we have learned that there is a way through it.

Janet Ellinger


All contents copyright 2002 by the Wisconsin Chapter of the Methodist Federation for Social Action. Permission is granted to United Methodist congregations, individuals and groups to reproduce and distribute this devotional without charge. All other use requires the advance permission of the editor.