A friend of mine, who is retired now, once told me about an experience he had when he was a newly consecrated bishop. He was visiting a saintly old lady in hospital and towards the end of his visit she turned to him and said, “Now look here, if you’re going to be worth having as a Bishop, never forget Exodus 20.21. You do know that verse don’t you?” (It just so happened that Bishop John Taylor is an expert in Hebrew and has written commentaries on the Old Testament but for the life of him he couldn’t remember anything about that verse. “Well?” she said, “Do you know the verse or don’t you?”
A little embarrassed, he started to confess that that particular verse had momentarily escaped his memory, but she cut him in mid sentence. “Never forget,” she said, “the thick darkness where God is.”
When he got home he looked it up. Sure enough, Exodus 20.21 says, “Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.” Psalm 97 mentions this same heavy, dense blackness as well: “Clouds and thick darkness surround him.” Isn’t this a bit of a surprise? Wouldn’t you expect the Bible to say instead that God is surrounded by radiant light?
I mean to say that already this evening we have sung the words, “God of God, light of light,” “All is calm, all is bright,” “In your dark streets shines the everlasting light,” and “Radiant beams your holy face.” Who may dare intrude into God’s awesomely holy presence without due humility and reverence?
In Psalm 139 it says, “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” You could travel to the bleakest place on (or under) the earth – and God would still be there.
In Darkness We See More
450 miles north of Santiago in Chile, high up in the Andes at an altitude of nearly 8,000 feet, is the La Silla Paranal Observatory. It’s one of the best places for stargazing in the world. About 7,000 stars can be seen there. In any town you can only ever make out a few hundred. From La Silla Paranal you can see the Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy and amazing meteor showers with the naked eye.
It’s so remote that there is no light pollution from nearby cities. There are hardly any blinking lights from passing airliners because it’s so near the mountains. The night sky there is as inky black as anything you will ever see. But that is why it’s possible to see and admire the visible universe so distinctly there.
It’s why diamonds are always shown on a black velvet cloth. Their beauty and brilliance is that much more striking that way.
It’s why the eternally glorious Son of God entered the earth in a shabby stable, surrounded by beasts of burden and farm odours. His grandeur and splendour are so much more stunning that way.
No room at the inn. What did it feel like? Everyone shakes their head and closes their front door in front of you. Every hotel, every B and B, every guesthouse, every hostel in town has the “No Vacancies” sign up… everywhere is full.
Or is it? I mean, how full were these places really?
Think about it a minute. You turn up at a hotel one night and ask for a room.
The receptionist says, “Sorry sir, we are full.”
So you reply, “I don’t think you understand. There must be some mistake. I am the Queen’s Private Secretary and she will be here in an hour.”
If it was the Queen, she would say, “I’ll just speak to the manager, sir.” While she’s away speaking to him you set your mobile phone to go off in 12 minutes. 10 minutes later the manager appears with the surprising news that there must have been some understanding and there is a room free after all.
You thank the man and start to make the necessary arrangements, when suddenly your mobile phone rings. You switch off the alarm and say into the phone, “Good evening Ma’am… Yes, ma’am. I see ma’am… Certainly ma’am. Goodbye ma’am.” Turning to the hotel manager you say, “Her Majesty is not able to come tonight after all. Tell you what, as you’ve gone to so much trouble, I’ll take her room!”
But Joseph and Mary are lost in a strange town, exhausted from the long journey, stressed by the increasingly frequent contractions and feeling deflated by all the “No Vacancies” signs. They’re in no state to argue and so they settle for the one offer they get; a cheerless and dingy outhouse where the donkeys and cattle bed down for the night. It’s the darkness where God is…
Two Examples
About 2½ million people in sub-Saharan Africa die from AIDS every year. It leaves widows with no income and orphans with nowhere to live and no one to love them. It leaves desperately sick people with no healthcare in some of the world’s poorest countries. Every death is a grim tragedy for someone.
I have a friend called Chris Brooks, who is a medical doctor. Shortly before he was due to retire, he gave up everything he had and moved to Malawi, one of the poorest countries on earth, and where life expectancy is just 48 years old. He set up two clinics giving free healthcare to penniless nobodies. Last year, his clinics treated 120,000 people with dignity and care and attention.
I once asked him how he keeps going in such a wretched place with so much misery and do you know what he said? He said that the presence of the Lord is never stronger, never more real, and never more tangible than when serving the poorest of the poor because it’s so close to the heart of God. 60% of HIV/AIDS programmes in Africa are funded and run by churches. They’re in the thick darkness where God is.
If I asked you to name the three most dangerous, most violent, most volatile countries in the world, I think most of you would still put Iraq in there somewhere.
It’s still a perilous place. The vicar of Baghdad, Andrew White, gave an interview at the height of the troubles there about two years ago and he said this:
“Sometimes the news is so bad that all I can do is sit on my bed and cry. A few years ago 10 people in my church were killed in a single week. You can’t help yourself asking ‘Lord, why?’ Every member of my Alpha team was killed once when their minibus was ambushed on their way to a conference in Jordan.”
“Eleven members of my staff were shot dead in 2007. I’ve seen people come to our church at the risk of their lives. It takes them 3 hours to complete the one mile journey because of all the security. I’ve made pastoral visits having to wear a bulletproof helmet in a helicopter that came under fire from bandits.”
“We have five Alpha courses now, in three languages. People are coming to Christ dozens at a time. The previous owner of the place where I work left a fantastic baptistery for us. It’s Saddam Hussein’s old swimming pool and we have baptized hundreds in it, always at 6 in the morning, sometimes to the sound of distant explosions.”
Wherever you find suffering and affliction and gloom on earth – you’ll find God at work. Whatever your darkness is; family worries, bereavement, illness, joblessness, depression, financial problems, loneliness… The thick darkness is where God is.
Ending
It was in Bethlehem’s dark streets in a backstreet cow shed that Jesus came to earth - because it’s in the darkness that God is most at work.
There was barely daylight at noon the day Jesus died - because it’s in the darkness that God is most at work.
It was pitch dark in the cold, stone sealed tomb on Easter Sunday morning - and you know what happened there.
Sermon preached at the Carol Service at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 20th December 2010
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