While It Was Still Dark

My two children and I sat in the cafeteria at the hospital waiting for word from the surgeon. My wife was having her thyroid removed, having found traces of cancer earlier that Spring, and it was a long wait it seemed at the time. As a pastor I had sat with dozens of people waiting through procedures of one kind or another over the years. I had no idea what my presence had meant to them until it was my turn and with no pastor of my own. It was a moment of walking in hope while it was still dark.

It may not happen in a hospital cafeteria or ER waiting room, but we all find ourselves in the unknown from time to time. A kind of darkness drapes over us, preventing us from seeing the outcome and so we hang on to the hope that things will turn out ok. It doesn’t always. In fact, occasionally we walk thru darkness having left all hope behind. There is no outcome we can point to that provides a reason for hope. Mary of Magdala knew that darkness, as did the 11 disciples gathered in a room in Jerusalem. The One they followed for three years, the One they believed to be “Him” had been sadistically executed 2 days earlier. It was over, all hope gone and yet they stayed. We don’t know the answers to the questions we might have.

What we do know is that “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.” With no expectation but that of finishing the work of preparing Jesus’ body, Mary went. Because she went, she was given the privilege of discovering the miraculous. Jesus had been raised from the dead just as He had said to the disciples, just as the prophets predicted centuries before, just as God had planned in His purpose to save us.

I have no idea what you might be processing today, tomorrow, or next year but I know this… “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” Ps 139:11,12 There is no place, no situation, no darkness too hopeless for God to deliver.

I have lived long enough and through enough to know that the hope He brings is Himself. There is no answer that will suffice in the darkness other than the promise the one Jesus gave his disciples the night before his crucifixion, “Do not fear, for I am with you always, even unto the end of time.” Days after His promise was given, Jesus appeared among them, and breathed on them the Holy Spirit to walk with them. The same Holy Spirit he gives to us when we believe on His name.

After a long wait, the surgeon called and spoke with me about the procedure. For the next 6 months or so our kids and I teased Deb about her “funny voice” grateful that was the only residual effect. Years later she sings like an angel and I am often reminded of God’s presence with us when we felt so alone walking in the dark.

My prayer for you this Easter is that you will know the peace of Him who gave His only Son, that whoever believes will not perish but have eternal life. Happy Easter.

Tim