Candlelight In The Darkness

( To gain a further understanding of the meditation that follows, a reading of the suggested scriptures will be most helpful)

Scripture Reading: Joshua 24: 14 – 18 (1)
Matthew 5: 14 – 16 (2)

Joshua 24: 16 – Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods!  It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes.”

When truth triumphs over falsehood, it shines as a beacon of hope in the surrounding darkness. To be a harbinger of such light is to inspire the hope that the Prayer Jesus taught us to pray – “Thy Kingdom Come” – may yet find fulfilment in this world.
The saga of the Hebrews’ journey into the Promised Land presents them with just such a challenge.

Moses is dead!  That, in and of itself, is an unfathomable loss.  Gone from them is the powerful presence of God’s spokesman.  The Hebrews leave a lonely grave somewhere in Moab, and under the leadership of Joshua, they journey towards the new homeland.  Even from a distance, they become aware of the different world view awaiting them in their future home. The atmosphere is seething with new customs and philosophies – to say nothing of the practices of foreign religions. Where will they find a suitable anchorage for the Truth that liberates?  Searching questions come from the lingering shades of new prosperity so close at hand.  Is it Providence or mere chance that leads them from slavery to riches?  Is the cry of Moses – “Let  My People Go” – meant to be the command towards this new temptation for moral and religious freedom? What is Truth?  Perhaps manna from Heaven appears in many new forms now, and it is everywhere.  Many of them wonder whether it is more appropriate to ‘thank God’ or to ‘thank their lucky stars.  The Darkness was dense and threatening.  No one could deny that fact, but what to do now is the immediate consideration.

They must consider three alternatives.

1.   They can submit to the darkness, as many of them will, or curse the darkness and the day that brought them to it.

2.  They can condemn these foreigners and their misguided religions.

3.  They can light a candle and let its effulgent rays shine on in the darkness.
“It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”

But where is the ‘candle’ with intensity enough to penetrate this insipid darkness?  Some in the company of travellers find it too easy to yield to the darkness, and soon they intensify the struggle for their fellows.  Some, however, experience the stirring of new life force in the deepest places of their souls and strike back at the darkness.  “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord and serve other gods!  It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our fathers from the land of slavery, and performed great signs before our eyes.” And there it is, a faint glimmer of light in the intense blackness. Even if the masses choose the darkness of the night, even one lighted candle cannot be forgotten. The ingredients to drug the mind into forgetfulness are so abundantly accessible to each one in their company.  Is there anything that can intercept that onslaught?  What if, in their earlier experience with manna from heaven, a mother holding her starving child in her arms finds life-saving Manna outside the door of her tent?  Would she not be likely to respond to her cohorts, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. We know that it is the Lord who works awesome deeds for us.”  Would that memory not stimulate others to recall personal happenings that make no sense at all, apart from the fact of the Lord’s doing?  If that can happen, causing one after the other to light their candle, soon it will not be the darkness that is most prominent but ‘the lights of a city set on a hill.’ (Matt, 5:14)

It is the most urgent need in this modern day of unimaginable darkness to bear witness to the light that is within our souls and proclaim its source unabashedly.  Then the dark demonic forces of our age will have met their match.  We need not interrogate our personal experience too extensively to discover some incident of the Lord’s mighty deeds in our lives.

Even at the risk of being too personal, I feel compelled to relay the following experience. But, then, personal experience is all I have that is essentially my own.

At the age of eighteen, I was wrestling with my future career choice. Would I be an engineer, or a teacher, or somehow learn to deal with a persistent nagging in my spirit to be a minister?  I tried being a teacher for a year, and while it was a satisfying experience, I decided not to continue in that profession.  Perhaps I needed some indication that I should strike ministry from the list as well.  At the age of eighteen, I became a lay pastoral minister to three far-flung congregations.  I was all alone and scared, yet all the time, a haunting realization persisted that I was not alone.  While all of this happening to me was exciting and fulfilling, I kept assuring myself that, in the end, engineering might be “the greatest of the three”.

And then, one close, muggy evening in mid-spring, I had a deeper encounter with the darkness.  I was scheduled to be the guest preacher at an ecumenical service.  There was a large congregation present, which contributed to the stifling atmosphere inside the church.  I stepped into the pulpit to deliver the sermon.  At the same moment, a choir member somewhere behind me, deciding that a measure of cool, refreshing air might now be desirable, proceeded to throw wide a window.  In came the breeze, and away went my copious supply of sermon notes, and on came the darkness!  It was serious, particularly for a boy of eighteen years.

I stood there in the choking silence for a moment, and then, I tell you, I was aware of another Presence in that pulpit with me that night!  And in the silence, I heard,

“My Son, don’t be afraid, we will do this together.  Do you think that everything depends on you and your notes.”
“No Lord, I guess it doesn’t, it is all up to You.”

I have completed nearly fifty years in ordained ministry, and the One who stood with me in that pulpit has never left my side. The light still shines, and no darkness has ever been able to put it out!
__________ ___________

Prayer Based On This Meditation

Thank You, Lord, for standing in for me when
my knees were too weak to hold my weight; and the
darkness came quickly on, and I imagined all
kinds of horrible dangers lurking in the dark.

Life is often like this. It is so easy for it to manufacture situations where anxiety breeds in a minute. One minute there is peace, the next minute there is chaos. Then we are left to pick up the shards of faith caused by the shattering blow of guilt. It is then that you come to us as the ‘Light,’ which enables us to find every missing piece. That completes the picture of You working upon a mere mortal to make it ‘something beautiful for God!’  Thank You for taking the smallest act performed in faith and preserving it as something magnificent and valuable towards my completion in ‘this vale of soul making.’
In truth, I will never be able ‘to stand in’ for You.  I am ready, though, to stand with You and to speak as You will give me utterance.  Here I am, use me; I am willing to be Your candle in the darkness!  I offer this prayer for Your love’s sake. Amen

Hymn:                           Ave Maria

 

Editorial Notes
(1) (2) Here and elsewhere throughout this text Scripture
References are from The New International
Translation Of Scripture. NIV.
(3) Thought to be an ancient Chinese proverb, often quoted.

Photo: Taken at our summer place  in Michael’s Harbour, Newfoundland, 2017