If you can't see Jesus in the dark, you can't see.

I live in central Alabama, this means if someone sneezes the power goes out. Recently the remnants of some storm came through and nocked out the power. This shows you how much time I have for keeping up with the weather. So yesterday (Wednesday) I attended a College ministry I often attend, and they had no power. The service was done by light of a plethora of candles. It was here that the College pastor told a folk type story, it went something like this,


"A revival type preacher in the south was preaching in the 1970's, and he was reaching the climax of a very powerful message, and all the power went out. It was pitch black. He got down because this impediment was assumed to be too much, and someone in the back yelled, 'Keep on preaching preacher! We can see Jesus in the Dark!'" The college pastor then said, "Aren't we thankful that we can see Jesus in the Dark?"


This prompted an immediate tweet from me, but it did so because it struck me. In the dark we see Christ. I have pondered this last night and today, and it brought this to mind.

The robbers who were crucified with him also spoke abusively to him.

Now from noon until three, darkness came over all the land.

At about three o’clock Jesus shouted with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

 Matt. 27:44-46

It was dark then, during the crucifixion, Jesus on the cross. Atonement was made, God's wrath poured onto Christ, this all happened to Jesus, it happened in the dark. 

I think why this was profound to me was because the place we look back to as our defining moments as Christians, as followers of Christ, is covered in darkness. Victory happened in the dark. If we can't see Jesus in the dark, you can't really see Jesus. 

This was also profound because I see life as a dark place. I mean place in a temporal sense, that life, that existence, that birth are all located in a fallen or synonymously dark world. So we come from a dark world to a dark cross, to see The Light of the World. 

If we can't see Jesus in the dark, we cannot come to the defining moment of Christianity, and if we can't see Jesus in the dark we can't see him from where we are, in the dark world. 

And that is why the beginning to John's gospel is glorious. Because in all this dark the Gospel is glorious light.

In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind.

And the light shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it.

John 1:4-5

And if you can't see Jesus in the dark it is because your blind, cause Christ is light. In the dark of the cross and wrath, Christ was glorified. Christ was still The Light of the World.

The Other Twin.

I apologize right now for this blog. The man who taught me to write, taught me to start before I knew where I was taking it.

First I have been reading Fredrick Buechner's "Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons" this work deals fairly openly with doubt and darkness. This probably leads to what I am blogging about today.

I recently read a sermon in this book that discussed doubt, specifically Thomas the doubter. It also proposed that Thomas was called the twin because the other twin is us. Or more concisely Thomas is in us, we share in his doubt.

As I thought about this I imagined myself touching the scars, or even the gaping wound in Christ side. Because that is what I do. I doubt. I doubt scripture. I doubt God's knowledge and goodness. I doubt everything. When I say I doubt, you probably think I mean I have these moments where I am crippled by despair and think everything I believe is a lie. But that isn't what I refer to, no disrespect if you go through that but, I don't. What I mean is this, sin is, if anything, doubt or even lack of trust. As we sin, we show ourselves to not trust God's council, at least when we willfully sin.

As I have read Buechner I see a dichotomy of hope and doubt. This is central and I picture it best with imagery. Derek Webb's famous song Wedding Dress was recalled to my mind as I imagined this scene of Jesus and myself.

"So could you love this bastard child?
Though I don’t trust you to provide
With one hand in a pot of gold
And with the other in your side."

You, I, and every other saint deals with our decisional doubt in this way. Our hands are essentially in Christ side because we don't believe one thing or another.

We must be honest and open about doubt, not closed off and silent. Life is dark. Christ inaugurated the Kingdom in a dark world, and we are to trek in the darkness and expand the Kingdom. If we are saved out of darkness, to go back into darkness, how can we try to hide the darkness in us? And if doubt is anything it is a dark part of our soul from deep down grasping at us to heed it. Decisional doubt is a lack of trust. How much darkness do you carry from your week by yourself? How many bad decisions do you bear alone? How many dark glimpses have thrust their doubting hand in to the scars?

But here is where the Gospel is for you Christian, Jesus loved Thomas, Jesus laid his life down for Thomas, Jesus Bore the wrath of God for Thomas. Thomas may have seen Jesus' face through his own tears, and Christ's own scars. But he saw Christ when he was a believer, as do we. Buechner said that perhaps we were the other twin. I say that the "we" that Buechner talks about is the we of believers, so the beauty of the Gospel is that Christ died for both twins, Thomas, and the Church. Who are at the heart of things, in one form or another, a group of doubters saved by grace through Christ's redemptive work.

Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored, 

may your kingdom come, 

may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread,

and forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors.

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.