Earlier this year, I preached a sermon called “Shining in the Darkness,” from John 1:1-18 and Jeremiah 31:1-7. Today, I was getting so down about all the fussy, contentious election news, that I reread some of that sermon to remind myself that we do, in fact, have hope. I thought I’d pull out a portion of that to share with you.
(I’ve linked the audio below for my mother, and for anyone else who might want to listen to the whole thing.)
Have you ever experienced dark times? Times when you longed for light? Just a little light, you think. A flashlight. A cellphone. Even a match.
Indeed, darkness abounds in this world. And sometimes we find ourselves crying out to God saying, Look God, these times are dark! I’ve lost my job; my kid’s struggling in school. My house has been on the market for a year and doesn’t show any signs of selling; my parents are growing old and showing the signs of age. I’m estranged from a family member; I’m a single parent. My job makes me miserable but I can’t quit because I need the money; I suffer from chronic pain, crippling depression, heart-breaking loneliness. My marriage is over; my loved one has cancer; my child is terminally ill. This is dark stuff.
And the problem is, even we as the Body of Christ don’t seem to know how to access the Light. I know a teenager charged with a crime he did not commit and a woman who has dealt with difficult, life threatening complications from an intricate and delicate surgery. Both of them have said to me, “I know this is part of God’s plan or it would not have happened.” They say this, shrugging shoulders, weeping, baffled by a God who would plan such things.
And I say, NO!
God put on flesh! God gets it. God is upset right along with you! Now, I do believe God will redeem all things and is always in the process of regeneration, reformation, renewal. But just because something happens doesn’t mean God designed it that way.
Redemption? YES. Intention? NO!
Think about it. God does not always get God’s way. Do you think God planned the Holocaust? Did God plan the attacks in Paris recently? Does God carefully lay out a plan for childhood cancer? I cannot believe these tragedies are God’s intention. What I know, though, is that not even darkness this extreme is beyond God’s redemptive love.
Scripture says in 1 John 1:5, “God is light and in God is no darkness at all.” I cannot believe that God ordained the Holocaust. But I stake my life on the assurance that even in the dark, horror-filled days of the Holocaust, God’s redemptive love found divine entrance. Almost immediately following the devastation of the Paris attacks, people found hope in unexpected places and encouragement from new friends. In the midst of countless chemotherapy appointments, the mom of a child with cancer comes home to a fresh cooked meal and a lawn freshly mowed. That’s light! That is God.