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In both
this church and my previous one, I have inherited the task
of teaching a men's group which meets weekly at a most
ungodly hour of the morning. Ungodly for me, that is. But
not for some of my guys. Especially the ones who beat me to
the church by half an hour, arriving at 6:00 a.m. to drink
coffee, munch donuts, and converse before class. They are
"morning people" in the true sense of the word.
I picture them smiling when their feet hit the floor ... perhaps
even singing. Still, one of them confesses that he dresses
in the dark and tiptoes quietly from the house, lest he wake
his wife who likes to sleep in. Which he enables, and even
encourages. He doesn't mind that she isn't like him.
He doesn't figure that he should be like her. To him,
the difference in their natures is neither good nor bad. It
simply is. There are, however, "morning people"
who claim that their preference of light over darkness is
reflective of how all righteous and godly people ought to
live. I suppose they borrow their authority from the agricultural
myth which speaks of making hay while the sun shines. Or could
the matter be more deeply rooted in the very stories of our
Judeo-Christian heritage? Careful reading of the Old and New
Testaments reveals a clear and obvious preference for light
over darkness. Morning people who read scripture will feel
rewarded and affirmed. Night people who turn to the Bible
will probably feel that its pages are biased against them.
A recent search of my Concordance turned up 197 biblical references
to the words "dark" and "darkness." In
virtually every case, the tone is negative and the reference
unflattering.
- Before
creation, darkness was said to be upon the face of the deep.
- Joel
was frightened by clouds of thick darkness.
- David
cried while walking on a carpet of darkness.
- Job
felt the darkness to be the shadow of death.
- Isaiah
talked about people walking in darkness, employing the word
as a synonym for gross ignorance.
- Amos
not only looked into the gloom of darkness, but claimed
that God would visit more of the same upon his unrepentant
people.
- Zephaniah
clearly viewed the darkness as divine punishment.
- Matthew
was fond of ending parables with the notation that anyone
missing the point would be cast into outer darkness.
- John
equated the love of darkness with an unwillingness to let
go of sin and evil.
- Paul
saw the darkness as something for converts to be delivered
from.
- Jesus
died when darkness was over all the land.
- Jude
pictured Hell, not as fire, but as the "nether gloom,"
an unbroken chain of darkness.
Turn to your
hymnal and you will discover vestiges of the same bias. Notice
how many lyrics tilt toward the light.
- Morning
has broken, like the first morning.
- See
the morning sun ascending, radiant in the eastern sky.
- Welcome
happy morning, age to age shall say.
- My
Lord, what a morning, when the stars begin to fall.
- Wake,
awake, for night is flying.
- When
morning gilds the skies, my heart awakening cries, may Jesus
Christ be praised.
- For
the darkness shall turn to the dawning, and the dawning
to noonday bright, and Christ's great Kingdom shall
come on earth, the Kingdom of love and light.
Such hymns
are blatantly anti-dark, trying to hurry the sun along, the
better that its beams might be splashed to the glory of God
and the uplifting of all. Consider our most elemental Christian
affirmation, the Nicene Creed, and find that Jesus Christ is
described as being: "One with the Father, God from God,
Light from Light." And then consider this Advent season
of the year, where the symbolism that threads its way through
the calendar is that of more and more light beating back less
and less darkness. And yet, I like the dark. I am something
of a night owl. I am not in love with bright parties which merely
attempt to recreate the day. Neither am I drawn to neon-bedazzled
dance clubs that proliferate in cities that never sleep. I simply
enjoy some of the quiet things that happen when the sun goes
down and the world takes its rest. I suppose I learned nocturnal
enjoyment from my father, who took more pleasure in the midnight
hours than he was able to milk from the rest of the day. Virtually
every night, in his later years, my father would go to the kitchen
about 11:00 p.m. and make himself a large mug of coffee. He
would also cut up a snack plate of summer sausage and cheese,
toss in several crackers for texture, and painstakingly carry
the results of his handiwork to the chair beside his radio.
There he would listen to news and sports on WJR, followed by
a couple hours of Jay Roberts and a program of recorded music
called "Night Flight." There he would also read, seemingly
grateful that the world had gone away and left him alone. To
the degree that he and I talked much at all, it was usually
in the hours when normal people slept. He was comfortable (and
easy to be with) when the rest of the world stopped. It was
only when it started up again that he felt like he didn't
belong. I similarly relish the dark, although for different
reasons ... and with different meanings. For me, the approaching
of midnight means that the world has turned and I have survived
another day of its rotation. It means that I can relax. It also
means relief from labor (when I have been busy), relief from
noise (when life has been tumultuous), and relief from heat
(when the congregation has held my feet to the fire). The later
it gets, the more free I feel to do what I want, rather than
what I should. Past 10:00, it is too late to visit anybody.
Past 10:30, it is too late to call anybody. When the rest of
the world is sleeping, it is too late to cut my grass, or rake
my leaves. It seems permissible to read for my own enjoyment
after 11:00. Before 11:00, I figure I ought to read for my edification ...
or my sermon. If I sit down to do some nightly writing, I am
fascinated by the thoughts that germinate and the sentences
that bloom. It is as if there is a connection between the arrival
of the darkness and the opening of inner doors that I have shuttered
by day. Similarly, when I do engage in late-night conversation,
I say things I might never say at a more sensible hour, and
often hear others saying the same kinds of things to me. Could
it be that Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, not fearing detection
(as has oft been suggested), but out of the belief that the
surrounding blackness would enable greater honesty thn might
be risked once morning came. Still, my love of darkness is a
minority opinion. Not everyone grows comfortable as the clock
advances. For some, it's a matter of preference. For others,
it's a matter of chemistry. But I also think something deeper
may be involved ... something more ominous and frightening ... something
that is perceived as a threat to one's security and well-being.
What is the meaning of the dark to those who fear its appearing?
Several possibilities suggest themselves. To some, the dark
represents ignorance ... the vast sum of all we do not know,
coupled with the suspicion that what we don't know can hurt
us. When we suspect that there is information that is not being
shared with us, what do we say? "I am being kept in the
dark." That 's what we say. "My bosses know something
that I do not know. My doctors know something that I do not
know. My parents talk in whispers, late at night, about things
that I do not know. My children never tell me the things that
I want to know." Inevitably, somebody will respond to such
a complaint by suggesting that we "leave well enough alone."
But when you are "in the dark," you can't leave
well enough alone. That's because you can't be sure
that what you are "leaving alone" is really "well
enough." To others, the dark represents doubt ... the sum
total of things we claim to know, but are not sure we believe.
We doubt the credibility of our leaders, the testimony of our
preachers, the veracity of our children, and the fidelity of
our spouse. For every conviction we nail down with certainty,
the screwdriver of doubt plies another one loose at the edges.
In one of our truly favorite hymns, we tilt back our heads and
sing: "Melt the clouds of sin and darkness, drive the dark
of doubt away." Ignorance! Doubt! I suppose the dark also
represents danger. There are, indeed, ghosties, beasties and
things that go bump in the night. The stars are not the only
things that come out at night. So do prowlers, poachers and
predators. There is reason to fear things that are nocturnal.
Things that threaten us can get closer to us in the hours when
we cannot see them. The solution? Increase nighttime visibility
with yard lights, floodlights, flashlights and night-lights.
Turn on the television the minute you enter a room. All of these
things are modern-day substitutes for the campfire, the original
purpose of which was not so much to keep us warm as to keep
us safe. And so we go from childhood (when we slept with the
lights on, lest something attack us from under the bed) to old
age (when we sleep with the lights on, lest we wake up, take
a false step, and fall down). But more than physical danger,
the dark is also symbolic of moral danger. Some people fall
down the stairs at night. Other people fall from grace at night.
Temptations can become virtually irresistible at night. And
the gospel of John suggests that one reason for preferring darkness
is that we do not want to see our evil deeds exposed. In one
of my favorite country songs (this coming, you understand, from
one who hates country music and figures that the ultimate punishment
for bad preachers is that they will be sent to spend eternity
at a church in Branson, Missouri), Tammy Wynette (or somebody
that sounds like Tammy Wynette ... which could be pretty much
anybody) sings:
-
- I
don't care what's right or wrong,
I don't try to understand.
Let the Devil take tomorrow,
For tonight I need a friend.
And the song
title? "Help Me Make it Through the Night." As the
trustee of a college that, in spite of its Christian affiliation,
still manages to experience instances of moral and ethical misbehavior,
I cannot recall a single student scandal ever taking place before
the hour of midnight. Dark is also, in a more esoteric sense,
representative of depression. The other day I was listening
to a discussion of Laplanders. The conversation turned to the
hard arctic winters, during which the uninterrupted darkness
does strange things to the mood of the populace. It is estimated
that 92% of all Laplanders suffer from a malady known as
Seasonal Affective Disorder, better known as SAD ... or "winter
blues." Sufferers complain of drowsiness, melancholia,
and an inability to concentrate. Once spring arrives, zest returns.
But not only does depression follow darkness, it also feels
like darkness. In the Old Testament passage read earlier, the
ninth plague visited by Moses upon the people of Egypt is the
plague of darkness. Within that narrative is to be found the
marvelous line: "Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that
there may be darkness over the land of Egypt ... a darkness to
be felt." What a marvelous choice of words are contained
in the phrase "a darkness to be felt." People who
have an insider's knowledge of the reality of depression,
often describe it as "a darkness to be felt." Until
one has experienced the darkness of depression, it is impossible
to know how stupid it sounds to have well-meaning well-wishers
say: "I know you'll snap out of it." For depression
is not easily snapped out of. The author William Styron, in
a personal memoir about his own battle with depression, points
to the severity of the malady when he writes: Genuine depression
is no minor dip in the road of life. Genuine depression is a
brainstorm, in the worst sense of the word "storm" ... a
storm of murk, characterized by slowed responses, near paralysis,
unfocused dread, and the feeling that one's psychic energy
is being throttled back to zero. That's a darkness one can
feel. All of which, of course, leads to the ultimate symbolic
equation, namely the equation of darkness with death. When I
spent a couple of preschool years living with my grandmother,
she taught me a lot of songs. Some of them were popular. Some
of them were ethnic. Some of them were silly. Given my impressionable
age, all of them were remembered. One of them was a song entitled,
"It Ain't' Gonna Rain No More, No More." Its
verse went like this:
-
- Some
people say the graveyard is a dark and lonely place.
They put you in a six foot hole, and throw the mud in your
face.
No wonder
darkness threatens. And yet ... and yet ... there is another word.
There is always another word. It is, to be sure, a biblical
word. Earlier, I told you that almost every biblical reference
to darkness is negative. There is one wonderful exception. We
read in Exodus 20:21: "Then the people stood at a distance,
while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was."
I take comfort in that, actually preferring it to the more popular:
"God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all."
Apparently T.S. Eliot felt as I do, given his lines:
-
- I
said to my soul, be still and let the dark come upon you,
which shall be the darkness of God.
The God of
the dark is at work in the dark. David Rankin writes:
-
- We
are blessed by darkness.
In the darkness of the cosmos, the stars explode into life.
In the darkness of the earth, the seeds sprout their roots.
In the darkness of the bed, you and I were conceived.
In the darkness of the womb, a fetus gains form and strength.
In the darkness of the body, heart, lungs and intestines
work away.
In the darkness of the brain, the circuits connect and create.
I trust
the darkness because I believe that something is happening
there ... something that looks and feels very much like God.
I think that what I like most about Advent is that (when all
is said and done) it leads to a God who comes when it is dark.
And we wait for him here in a sanctuary where nobody wants
to turn on too many lights. How interesting it is that the
darkest night in the sanctuary is deemed the holiest night
of the year. But I suppose it is appropriate. For Christmas
Eve is when the God of the dark, comes in the dark, to take
the edge from the dark. In a couple of funeral sermons of
late, I have shared what I think is my earliest childhood
memory. It concerns coming home as a three year old, late
one winter's eve, to a house that had been burglarized.
My father was in Italy, cleaning up a war. My mother was staring
at the broken glass, visibly shaken. The next door neighbor
appeared. His name was Jack Dempsey. But he was no boxer.
In point of fact, he was thin, gaunt and afflicted with emphysema.
But he called the police who sent, as I remember it, a patrolman
with a gun and a flashlight. I was most impressed with the
gun ... which wasn't needed. But the flashlight was a
godsend.
Room
by room, I watched the beam of that flashlight dancing across
the walls and ceilings, apparently landing on nothing evil.
Room by room, lamps were lit and our eyes followed in their
brightening. And then, with every light in the house ablaze,
we stepped across the broken glass (my mother and I), through
the violated door. And we were home. Which brings to mind
another little boy who came home an hour late one spring evening,
right after Daylight Lavings Time started. Normally home at
5:00, he came in at 6:00. "Where have you been?"
his mother said. "You're an hour late." To which
he answered: "I don't pay attention to the time.
I come home according to the light." His mother had to
take him aside and explain Daylight Savings Time ... which
came as a whole new idea to him. After rolling the "Daylight
Savings" concept around in his head for awhile (so that
the idea could find someplace to land), he turned to her and
said: "Does God know about this?" For the life of
me, I don't know what his mother answered. But if it means
providing enough light for wayward little boys and girls to
get home by, I think God knows.
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