It’s not unusual for me to hear
someone describe their life as being in a “dark place.” Now honestly, it is
typically women who say that although men have their equivalent as in “hole.” Either
way it’s a time of discouragement and testing usually difficult made so by bad
choices on our part or bad choices on others part or maybe just a bad time in
living. It goes like that in cycles. Up and down and up and down, on and on it
goes never stopping for long yet we seem to focus on the down or dark times
more so than the good ones.
The triumphal entry into
Jerusalem that we celebrate as Palm Sunday must have been one of the high points
for the Master and his disciples. People welcoming him into their city as a
King with palms and robes laid before his colt with shouts of adulation and
acclaim from the street sides. It must have been fun and maybe exhilarating. To
dare to think these people might finally recognize Jesus for who he really is.
That was too much to hope for and yet maybe the disciples dared to think that,
not so with Jesus.
Jesus knows what is ahead and
the dark turn life will bring for him and his followers. These people who lined
the streets wanted a King who would deliver them from the Romans and
reestablish Israel as a strong, proud, independent people. They did not know
that what they needed was a Savior who would set them free from sin once and
for all and not just Israel but the entire world. So this high was a fleeting
moment in their lives and the dark time would come.
It must have been a dark time for
the disciples to see all they had hoped for destroyed on the cross. We see from
the accounts they ran and hid, all except John. Peter denied knowing Christ. I
wonder if he was not also saying in his denial that he did not know what Christ
was doing or understand why. It was true he did not understand none of them
did. Nor do we understand all that Christ did at and on that cross. We will in
THAT day just not today. It was dark for the entire world as evil seemed to
have the upper hand. God was still in control and in charge in that and any
present darkness. The bigger picture is just so hard to see when you are right
next to the action.
My oldest daughter Elizabeth was
in Nashville Tuesday and went to her first NHL hockey game. She loved it.
Friends had a box in the arena on the club level but they also had 4 seats at the
ice. That’s where she went. She told of one check when a player was hit into
the “glass” right in front of her leaving a smudge of his sweat and other body
fluids.. I told her the only way to get any closer would be to have to wipe
that smudge off of you. That’s being next to the action.
When dark times come in our
lives we often participate in making and keeping it dark. We retreat from friends
pulling the curtains tighter. We find it harder and more difficult to pray
therefore praying less and less. We read the scriptures less if at all thereby
shutting the door on any hope of light at all. Have you done that? I have. It
is all too easy. Jesus is the light of the world even yours. Darkness is away
from the action. How do we shed some light in the darkness?
Claim a verse “Jesus wept,” say
a prayer even, “Jesus wept,” text a believing friend. In the midst of darkness
the faintest light shines bright. Jesus is the light in your darkness. Easter
is coming! The dawn of a new day!
Bro G
