Do you know this feeling? You wake up in the middle of the night and the darkness magnifies your fears? I worry about work. I fret over doing the taxes. So many unfinished projects around the house. And whatever else is going on, it all seems worse in the darkness.
My message Sunday on The Lutheran Hour is “When God’s Darkness Surrounds You.” Just before the giving of the Ten Commandments, there was terrifying darkness.
On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled…. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. (Exodus 19:16-19)
God surrounded the people with darkness and they were afraid. Who wouldn’t be?
Let our thoughts about darkness shift. God came to where His people were, not to destroy them but to tell them of His love. God veiled Himself in thick darkness so He could be close, so that His people could live, and so He could tell them of His love. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:2).
Can you think of another mount, another time of darkness, when God was frighteningly close? “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). “Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Oh… Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.” (Lutheran Service Book, 456, 1)
Now when I wake up in the middle of the night, afraid, it becomes prayer time. I give my fears to my Father, trust Him to take care of it, and fall back asleep.