LIFE ON THE ‘D’ LIST- DARKNESS

Lamentations 3: 1-20

On the day when we remember Jesus’ Last Supper, and then again on the day we remember his crucifixion, we will often sing the old hymn “Go to Dark Gethsamane.” To most everyone Gethsamane is a dark place, dark because it is the garden where the Lord Jesus went to pray for his life, to ask his Father to consider a different way, and finally to know that the course into the darkness of anguising death was set. For Jesus, darkness occurred most powerfully on that terrible rugged cross when, in pain and suffering he cried out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” But when the term darkness is mentioned, it may mean something different to you. I have known darkness, but I have not know crucifixion. I know some with depression know darkness, and some who have tragically lost a child; I know that women can face darkness with fertility issues and others can face in post-partem stages. Men can face darkness when they have lost their job, or when they are threatened by others in power. Terrified people can also face darkness. And bullied children or youth in trouble after trying to fit in can face darkness.Today let’s look at the idea of darkness, that even Jesus faced, and then suggest how others have moved beyond it.

Unlike children who often hide under beds, in rooms, outside, or in small places, adults also have their own ways of hiding. Some will hide their true feelings from others; some will hide their fear from their children, or they will hide their anxiety from a spouse or from friends. Others try to hide the fact that they are stuggling, as they go through their day on autopilot. Some eat very little, while others over eat. Some try to do their work and hope that they are hiding their emotional pain or spiritual anguish from others. Yet astute persons will look into eyes that look lifeless and sunken, and look at a face that seems sullen or forced, and they will have a glimpse into the other person’s struggle. There are people all around us that are working to hide their darkness … and there are others around you who have faced darkness but coped with it; and there are still others who have gone through making lemonade when life has handed them lemons. Many of one’s coping devices are formed at an early age, but traumatic events can through monkey wrenches into the cogs of coping.When we consider physical darkness, we know that there are physiological changes when we face it. Our eyes begin to dilate to let in more light and all our senses of hearing, taste, touch and smell join sight on full alert. It is dark, and in the dark the unknown surrounds us. Perhaps you known a blind person and have asked what it’s like no being able to see. When I move through our house at night if a storm has knocked out power, all is pitch black. I put out our hands, hunt for the walls, I remember to shuffle my feet on the floor so as not to trip. When I have to climb stairs, in the dark I reach for and hold the handrail which I rarely do when it’s light. When you are in the dark, especially a black out, many tense up and try to think what to do next. We try to think where our flashlight is, or where we can find a match. Light brings reassurance as it dissipates darkness.

Emotionally some people, perhaps not you, have found themselves in darkness. In the Bible you will note the despair of Elijah, the great prophet of the Old Testament. Fortunately the Bible does not sugarcoat the lives of anyone. You may recall when the prophet Elijah, who had, with great bravado, called for a contest on Mount Carmel between the gods of Baal, and God the Lord; Ahab was after him, but it was Queen Jezebel who pushed him over the edge. If you stop reading with 1 Kings 18 which is the great showdown, or if you skip over to 2 Kings 2 which is Elijah taken up in a whirlwind to heaven, you will miss the darkness of Elijah. In First Kings 19, Elijah ran from Ahab and Jezebel; he ran into a desert perhaps not thinking clearly, or perhaps hoping he could crawl into a cave and hide. But before he got there, he stopped in the burning sun and took shelter under a pathetic broom tree for shade. And there, the great prophet, thinking there is no one around to see him, shows his state of darkness. Calling out to God in desperation, he asked God if he would just take his life. Do you know people who just want God to take them? I do. What can we do to comfort people who want to say “Now!” to God about the end of their life, while God says to them “Not yet!” Sometimes it surprises us who has words or thoughts like Elijah’s. “It is enough” Elijah said with fatigue, “O Lord, take away my life.” It was in Felix Mendelssohn’s great oratorio called “Elijah” that he pictures the angel who woke him and pointed to bread and water as being a comforting heavenly host of angels as he transports listeners to the scene with the hauntingly beautiful chorus from Psalm 121 “Lift thine eyes, O lift thine eyes to the mountains, whence cometh, whence cometh, whence cometh help.” How would God best approach you with such comfort if your soul was so fragile that it was leaking tears out of your eyes? Some people might just say, “Shake it off!” or “Stop with all that silly crying.” But there are others, God included, who knows how to turn off the fearful, confrontational, or threatening human voices and let you hear the holy voices of angels. Some have suggested that Elijah was having burnout or an emotional breakdown in that chapter. The same darkness has come over ministers and other lay persons, often while feeling overwhelmed, or powerless, or hopeless. After all, conflicts with people can create tension, conflict, or criticism. God knows it; and Jesus felt it. You are not alone. How did God help Elijah? He arranged for a successor to take the burden of responsibility from Elijah. God has done that countless times for others as well. We don’t stop praying, we don’t stop hoping, and we don’t stop living. God knows what is in your prayers, and when the time is right, you will find light again. I was once in darkness, even more than once, and found light again. I imagine you, or others around you, have too. Take heart if you are in darkness today. In Elijah’s case, like a worn down relay swimmer or runner who gets to tag a new person with new energy to run the race, God provided a tag team. It is a good idea in human life to have someone in waiting, learning under you, who can run that stage of the race when you can’t move; you have laid down in your desert of torment under the shade of a broom tree. Yes, the Bible tells us that “the people who walked in darkness” get to see a great light in Christ. But sometimes a fractured soul, a battered heart, or rattled mind cannot see the light, not yet anyway. If you live in the light daily and encroaching darkness has not overwhelmed you, then you are fortunate. But I know that this has been, or will be, the experience of someone you know.

In the days when barrenness was seen as a curse from God, Sarai and Rachel wept in anguishing because they could not have children. How many others have gone through that anguish? Or other women have had their darkness when they had their child, and a state of depression set in. And what man has not had something dark nights of his soul when he loses his job; or what soldiers who have seen the combat of war have not gone into the darkness and terror of PTSD? There is darkness all around, even in the places you might look for light. For those who face spiritual darkness, there are also physiological changes. The body, mind, and soul are all connected. Spiritual darkness may make mobility quite difficult as the inertia to stay at rest is stronger than our ability to move. Depression may set in, or perhaps despair, doubts, or a sense of hopelessness. These are crippling conditions. The way to see the light of God’s love again may be tricky. You might think caring Christians could help a person in darkness, but sometimes caring Christians contribute to a person’s darkness. You might think the love of family might help people out of their darkness, but sometimes the well-intentioned-or the malevolent- family members are a root cause of the darkness. You might say those people just need to pray more, but those people find that they cannot pray or hear God. You might say they just need more faith, but asking faith of one who is broken down is a Herculean request. Sometimes all one can do is stumble in the dark; and at times it is all one can do to just be; even life is painful. It is during those times when some of the best help that can be offered is: a) to be with them in their despair and, b) to be a great listener. There are specialists around who can gently guide people back toward light and functionality: pastoral counselors, doctors, social workers, ministers, and chaplains are a few of those specialists. And we know that darkness sometimes breeds other “D” words like despair, desperation, depression, and debilitating weakness. In addition, when the mind gets corrupted, distortions of the soul can make sin seem extra overwhelming.

Now we will consider the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Here is what theologian Georgia Harkness has said about him: “There is nowhere in the Old Testament a more tragic, triumphant figure than Jeremiah. He knew well enough in his own experience what the dark night of the soul means. Betrayed by his own townsmen, thrown into a miry cistern, repeatedly subjected to indignity and danger by the very people for whom he sought to intercede, and apparently [feeling] abandoned at times even by God ….” [DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL, Abingdon Press, 1945, p. 32-33.] Jeremiah, man of God and proclaimer of God’s word, also said “Woe is me, mother, that you have born me, a man of strife and contention to the whole world.” (Jeremiah 15: 10) and “Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable that refuses to heal?” (15: 18) And then in his Lamentations we have today’s passage which, in part, reads: “I am the one who has seen the affliction under the rod of God’s wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; against me alone he turns his hand, again and again, all the day long. He has made my flesh and skin waste away and broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he had made me sit in darkness like the dead of long ago.” Such words are so haunting that they disgust some with their sniveling while they make others want to come alongside of Jeremiah and just be with him. There are times to just be with someone in their darkness, and there are times to guide them out of it. One of my mentors in the Doctor of Ministry program is Dr. Kathleen O’Connor who has written an entire book on Lamentations. To move the shaking of a personal foundation into a more global picture that reminds us of the recent horrendous earthquake, tsunami, and ruptured nuclear cores in Japan, these words of hers offer current counsel: “For survivors of civil wars, destroyed cities, and genocides, for refugees, and for those who subsist in famine and destitute poverty, the poetry [in Lamentations] mirrors reality with frightening exactitude. When, like me, readers live in relative safety and prosperity, Lamentations calls forth loss and pain more narrowly, personally, and indirectly. Yet even in the prosperous United States there are normal human losses to lament, deaths, disappointments, and hidden depression with which to contend. There are broken marriages, catastrophic illnesses, and violence among our children, hatred between groups, and debilitating poverty exacerbated by wealth all around.” [LAMENTATIONS AND THE TEARS OF THE WORLD, Westminster/John Knox Press, p. 5.] When people are so fragile, we cannot rush the light; but we can point to it, offer hope, and embody the one who is the Light. May you see light at the end of your tunnels of darkness.

Jeffrey A. Sumner March 20, 2011