At the Darkest Time

Photo from here

[I meant to blog every day in October, but got derailed by life. Well, it was a good try...]

"But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son..." Gal. 4:4

At a very dark time in history, one of the darkest as people suffered under the iron hand of Roman rule, Jesus was born on this earth. Whatever you think of who Jesus was--and there aren't many options, as C.S. Lewis points out--that event of His birth changed history and brought something to this world that, if taken seriously and without self-serving motives, makes our world a better place.

I was thinking about that this morning, about the incarnation of God at the darkest time in history. Several people I know of are going through darkest times right now.

My mother is losing her memory, and knows she is confused. It causes her anxiety. Some days she doesn't know who my dad is. He's just a man in her apartment. Not threatening, not familiar,...just a man.  Yesterday she didn't know who her own son was when he came to take her to breakfast, nor did she recognize that the cute twins with him were her granddaughters. One of these days she won't know me. I'm trying to prepare myself for that time. I know it will be very painful for me. I will grieve, and the nature of this kind of disease is that the grieving will be drawn out over time. Darkest times.

A friend of mine has been diagnosed with cancer. It has spread through her body, and she is struggling onward with the best attitude she can muster, combining traditional and non-traditional approaches to make her days as hopeful and as good in quality as she possibly can. She has one son, a young adult who recently graduated from college, whom she loves dearly. She faces darkest times.

Another dear friend recently lost her mother, who was everything to her. I have thought several times that, in the demise of her own faith, my friend placed her mother in the "god role." And that worked pretty well, as her mother was a godly woman, a woman of faith. My friend does trucking for a living and used to talk on the phone with her 90-year old mother as she drove that truck full of frozen berries, strawberry plants or corn across this country. Now there is no mother's voice at the other end of that phone call. There is no longer a god-figure for her. She is distraught. Darkest times.

Others I know are facing darkest times with work, with family members who have hurt them, or with financial difficulties that seem insurmountable.

But Jesus showed up in this world's history at the darkest time.

He always does.

My friend with cancer writes that she had a sense that Jesus was propped up on an elbow, lying next to her on her radiation table, going through the procedure with her and calming her. She felt His presence very closely in that moment. We don't always sense the presence of God with us, but I believe that He shows up... especially in our darkest times. Not to pull some magic trick and make it all better. Not to convince us that He exists where we have insisted on proof. But He, the creator, the sustainer of life, is there with us. In our darkest times. And the world is a better place because He comes.

For that hope, for that assurance, for that reality, I am already celebrating this Christmas. Oh, Jesus, come into this world! Be amid the darkness in the minds of loved ones. Be around those whose bodies are failing them and whose worlds are growing darker. Travel alongside those who have been bereaved, and bring warmth and comfort and light. Be with those who experience darkest times. Be ... in our world.