So often God speaks in darkness.
In the name...
So, I am a son of the South and a son of the Mountains. And this means many wonderful things to me. But it also means this: if EVER a weatherman announces some once-in-a-lifetime celestial event, like a full-on lunar eclipse eclipse or a dozen comets about to pass by so close we can almost touch them, on that day it will surely rain.
And if you live in an urban area, even on a clear night, the chances are you you may see some of it, but not enough to think it's any big deal, because you are surrounded by too much light – car lights, street lights, building lights, house lights. All these lights that we force on ourselves, partly out of convenience, but also partly out of fear, I think. And that's just the way of modern life.
It's just part of living here in our little Paradise. You have to take all that good with a little bit of bad. And galactic disappointment turns out to be one of those things.
But there are places in the world – and I've been to some of them – where it pays to get out at night and look up. Where the air is so clear, and the sky is so bereft of clouds, and you can actually see it all. All those stars and planets in their courses. All those constellations we've heard about. Just darkness and light. Heavenly light. Nothing else blocking it out. Just you and the universe, both held together in God's hand.
I imagine that's how Abram felt when he heard God's voice.
We aren't told it was dark, but mostly things happened to Abram – or Abraham, later – when it was dark. Covenants were made, promises were kept. Those things in our ancestral story that were really big deals.
So, I can imagine Abram surrounded by all of his father's tents, the communal supper is over. People who have worked hard all day, are now, bit by bit, settling in for the night. And maybe it's Abram's turn to make the rounds, to walk the perimeter of the family holdings, just to make sure that everyone is safe and sound, the cattle are ok, no little children have wandered out of sight. Just routine.
And he stops, away from all the cook fires and the noise, and sits and looks. Into the dark.
It's so big, that sky. And people back then aren't dumb. They may have legends as to how things get to be the way they are, just like us, but even then, Abram can look up and see that's a whole lot of universe, way, way out there. And that what he sees is countless and limitless.
There are two types of people in the world, I think. The kind who look up at all that and feel insignificant and head back inside where life is, and the kind who look up and feel significant, connected somehow, part of all THAT! And I think Abram is that second kind, sitting there, looking up, and letting himself go a little bit. Stretching his spirit out, until...Until it connects with something amazing. And whatever that amazing thing is, it begins to speak to him. And it tells him to follow.
How can you possibly say No when the whole universe lines up and God whispers, “Follow”?
I can't imagine that happening during the day, when cattle are mooing and sheep are bleating, and everyone in your tribe is moving about and bumping into each other and fighting and laughing, giving birth and burying. Foraging and cooking and eating. Being active, doing what is expected. Too many distractions. Too many expectations.
No, this just had to happen in the dark.
And, you know, for a species that tends to avoid the dark we spend an awful lot of time in it. Not just the physical dark, but those dark places in our psyches and spirits. We spend time in those dark places, doubting ourselves, tossing and turning, wondering if we are good enough. Wondering if we are successful enough. Wondering if we're pretty enough, or smart enough, or whatever enough. Letting the darkness of those thoughts lead us to places of despair and depression. And we let ourselves fill the darkness with such soul-grinding what-ifs that we miss that in the darkness God so often pushes all those what-ifs aside and replaces them with a single “I am here.” Because the Spirit of God moves in the dark to, like a wind.
The Spirit moved in the dark for Abram...and it moved in the dark for Nicodemus, too. In the darkness Abram is moved to renewal through the Spirit, and in the darkness Nicodemus is reborn in the Spirit. New life comes not just in the sun of the day but under the stars at night. New understandings and new perspectives. New ways of seeing.
What would it mean for us to understand that God is in our darknesses, too? That the Spirit is moving in us at those times, too?
Most of us think we know who God is, who God calls us to be, what God wants us to do. What if we were to stop spending our days telling God what we know and sit quietly in the dark recognizing that God is bigger than our understanding, and to listen for God's Word to sweep over us without direction from us.
What if we did not hold back but allowed the wind to take us out of our dark places and to that quiet, amazing dark place where we can hear, really hear? What would happen to us if we listened for God to call forth from us those things we did not recognize as being possible?
Throughout my life I have had people call forth from me gifts which I did not recognize as being mine to give, in times when I thought I was trapped in my own dark place. I am certain my experience is not unique.
Out of that darkness, God works giving birth to those gifts. God calls forth life from those dark places which we cannot bring about on our own. What might God be calling forth from us now? Can we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to the untamed wind of God? Can we listen for what we have been unwilling to hear? Can we see in one another the image of the God who has given us birth?
God called Abram in the dark from a barren life to purpose, calling into existence things in his life that did not yet exist. And in the darkness Abram was willing to trust God, moving from despair to hope, from old securities to new gifts, to new life. Leaving what he knew to be true, he went where he had never been, away from all familiar markings and reference points, allowing his life to be reshaped by the One who came to him under a beautiful, starry night. Abram stepped out into a new way of living and was blessed.
The invitation to Nicodemus, the invitation to us, comes as a birth announcement. The invitation is to let go of the self-doubts and self-disparagements. The knowledge that night, in the presence of Jesus, that God loved us first and loves us still, calling forth from us a life beyond our imagination. Such life is ours not because we figure out the "What-ifs" and did the right thing, but because the God who loves us breathes life into us again.
To be reborn in the night when the Spirit moves is to trust our life to the God who gives birth to us.
To be reborn in the night when the Spirit moves is to embrace the mysterious newness of God knowing that our journey will be worth it.
To be reborn in the night when the Spirit moves is to live as one born of love.
For we are all led to sit in the dark, under our own stars, wondering the what-ifs of our souls and rejoicing in the “I am here” of God's response. We are all called to let that voice speak, and to follow that voice, in the day and in the night, to wherever God leads us. To new birth and new adventure.
Amen.