Tuesday, 2 December 2014

Isaiah chapter 42: The darkest hour

42:16   ‘I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth.’
“the darkest hour of all is the hour before day”


Darkness is specially familiar to those in winter time who live in the very Northern hemisphere. It can be a trying time of the year calling for diversion, companionship and the comforts of living.  Not for nothing did Christians take over and ‘christen’ pagan festivals of light. 5,000 years ago a people built such extraordinary edifices as the Newgrange tomb. Some see in this a mysterious pre-configuration of the mystery of death and resurrection of Christ 2,000 years ago. Whatever rituals or belief codes people have used down the ages they continue to be perplexed by the succession of darkness and light, of death and new life and of decay and new growth. The seasons tell us that there is a mystery and a momentum in the working of nature.

Sitting in the tomb on winter solstice day we await the rising of the sun and the piercing of light through the tomb with an adjustment for a tilt in the earth’s axis occurring since the genius of the people that constructed these extraordinary sites.

May we never lose hope that light will shine through in the darkest of times and places.


#JourneyIsaiah

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