“Never doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light.”  I’m not sure who first spoke or wrote those words, but they express an important spiritual principle.

For the next few weeks (during Advent) we here at Corinth will be thinking about light.  The apostle John said of the coming of Jesus, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (John 1:5).

Yesterday we began with Genesis 1, when God spoke light into existence and pronounced it good (excellent).  Light is essential for life, learning, safety, and hope.  Light is God’s first – and perhaps his greatest – gift.

But most of the Bible’s 270 uses of the word “light” are not about physical light.  Light and darkness are powerful metaphors.

St. John of the Cross, a sixteenth century mystic, spoke of “the dark night of the soul,” when God seems absent or distant.  But John did not believe this soul-darkness should be avoided or dreaded.  It is a grace that forces us to be still, to be quiet – to relate to God by choosing peaceful stillness over the frantic pace of activity that no longer satisfies.

Isaiah 50:11 tells us to use the times of darkness to deepen our reliance on the Lord our God.  St. John of the Cross would add, in a pastoral word appropriate for our modern celebrations of Advent and Christmas, to seek or at least remain in times of darkness (quiet, aloneness, stillness) in order to rediscover God’s peace.