Out of Darkness

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."

1 Peter 2:9

"The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
a light has dawned
on those living in the land of darkness."
Isaiah 9:2

I grew up in the country.  There wasn’t much besides the two miles of woods behind my house and lots of outdoors.  My best friend lived about half a mile down the road.  During the summer we would spend most of the day in the woods behind our houses.  At some point in the afternoon or evening one of our mothers would yell into the woods for us to come home.

Emerging from the woods I was always surprised at just how light it still was.  In the forest the darkness was deep well before sunset.  And it had come so gradually that I didn’t realize how dark it had become.  Things had lost their detail and color.  But, just on the boundary of the light objects regained their shape and color.  Inside the forest many things had an eerie appearance.  Fallen trees could be mountain lions, or wolves.  In the light these things were just logs.

Isaiah spoke of us as “the people walking in darkness”.  Before Christ, there was no light.  A darkness so deep that nothing has color or detail.  The world wasn’t clear to us.  We could not see things as they were.  But Christ came and gave us “a great light”.  He brought clarity into our dark, shapeless, colorless world.

Peter tells us that he has called us out of this darkness “into his marvelous light”.  My Mom called

me out of a darkness that I didn’t realize I was fading into but I knew what light was.  Christ called me from a spiritual darkness that I didn’t know existed because I had never known light.  He called me out of this blinding darkness.  He gave me light that I didn’t know was.

As a child playing the forest, I didn’t realize the encroaching dark.  It was gradual and almost imperceptible.  The world we live a part in pulls us into darkness in a similar way.  The changes are so small and gradual that we don’t realize it.  

Just one movie.  Just one song.  Just one show.  Just one small group.  Just one Sunday.  Oh, a second won’t hurt.  Threes not a pattern.  What was it that I wasn’t supposed to be doing?  Do we still have our small group?

1. Where is darkness encroaching in your life?
2. How is Jesus calling you into his great light?
   
   
   --Zine Smith