Shattering the Darkness
I want you to picture a dark room with me, with nothing in it. This small space is so pitch black that you can’t see your hand in front of you.
Does this feel like how life is sometimes? A wash of midnight inked blackness veiled over it all. So dark that you can’t walk in a straight line without hitting something, stumbling, or falling, careening down further into darkness.
Now I want you to picture in the middle of that same room a small, glowing candle, with a warm, flickering flame. At first, it only lights the very small space around its edges, blue and orange with flickering embers. Slowly, it grows brighter and the flame larger, consuming the darkness surrounding it.
The psalmist says that even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. Then Jesus comes and as he likes to do, flips everything upside down. Jesus says that whoever follows him will never walk in darkness because they will have the light of life.
So we picture that light. The one that started so small in a sea of darkness and gradually becomes so bright that it engulfs the entire room. We see it shine out of the doors and windows, seeping through every part of that house, and spilling out onto the street. We see it shine through us into the world.
Right now, we banish the darkness and say, “No more!” We let your light fill every corner of our souls. Every small voice inside us that says, “You are unworthy,” we fill it with your light so it can be no more. When we see others around us that do not act in love, we give them your light by speaking to them as brothers and sisters in Christ.
God of light, we ask you today that you no longer let us live in darkness or shame, but be guided by you into a life of love, kindness, acceptance, and hope. A hope that shatters all darkness and leaves us with a never ending flame burning bright.
Amen.
Photo by Abdullah Ahmad
