BLOG 5/27/17. THE FRIGHTENING METAPHOR OF DARKNESS

BLOG 5/27/17. THE FRIGHTENING METAPHOR OF DARKNESS

I have come to have a new appreciation for the frequent use of darkness in Scriptures as a metaphor for all kinds of frightening realities. It so happed that the other morning I had just settled in earlyfor my coffee and prayer time when the power went out, and so also the lights. It was a very cloudy morning so there was not even any residual star or moon light. It was dark. I had no flashlight so I wasn’t too eager to go stumbling around in the dark. It was disorienting to a fault. But, for me, I knew that the local power company would be on top of this fairly quickly, and so I had hope. And, sure enough, in a few minutes the lights went on, all the digital units beeped, and life returned to normal.

Somehow that caused me to think of Jesus on the cross, crying out to God, “Why have you forsaken me?” Our creeds say that “he descended into hell,” which in some other passages is described as outer darkness. My imagination went to work on that. What would it be like to be in total, stygian, darkness, totally disoriented, alone and without hope—no one, not even God responding? What a horrible description of what Christ suffered.

Also, Jesus and the apostolic writers speak of “being without God, or hope in the world” (Ephesians 2:12); of being “delivered out of darkness and into his marvelous light” (I Peter 2:9); or Jesus telling his listeners that those who follow him will not walk in darkness (John 8:12). Without our embrace of Christ (and his embrace of us) we are described as captive to the dominion of darkness.

Jesus came as the light of the world, which infers that so much that defines this world exists in a frightening existential darkness with no ultimate meaning, or orientation, or hope, … a populace in whom God is not even in their thoughts, though they all share the same human community. Even religion has been replaced by a self-sufficient humanism. The basic human needs of a center, an authority, a creative source, a guiding line, and a final goal are all kept out of sight. Even the church has succumbed to being religious entertainment too often.

It is commendable that such children of darkness can be engaged in many noble, creative, humanitarian, and neighborly causes. But beyond the immediate, what? Is life a boundless, bottomless sea of chance. Are we to be content with an existential agnosticism? Darkness.

It is into such an existential scene of political, religious, moral, cultural darkness that Christ’s message was that he was the Light of the World. He is the one who defines all true meaning and hope. And his calling to his children is to “walk as children of light,” to incarnate the joyous reality of one who bore the hellish darkness which we deserved so that we might partake of his life of light and hope and meaning and love. Yet, behind the smiling façade projected by many of our gifted and personable daily acquaintances there are those who dwell in darkness, “without God and without hope in the world.” Darkness: what an awesome metaphor of life without God.

But the converse message is that it is to just such that God exhibited his love so that these might be delivered out of their bondage to the darkness and so obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God, … to have light and hope in the midst of even the most humanly impossible scenarios. Jesus: he Light of the world. I do want here and now to herald that indescribably wonderful gift of God.

 

http://wipfandstock.com/the-church-and-the-relentless-darkness.html

 

 

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge