"Rejoice in hope,
be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer."
The picture on the right side of this post is a picture of
our youngest daughter. My wife took it
yesterday while we walked to the post office.
She is the youngest of our five children and the only one still living
at home. In this picture she is just
being herself.
We delight in her exuberance, which is frequently on
display. There is rich story of how she
came to be our daughter and we thank God daily for bringing her into our
home. Parenting her is hard work but every
day we experience joy as her mom and dad.
She is a very bright light in our life.
Last night we received some hard news about a member of our
congregation. This member's daughter had
tragically died during the afternoon. At
perhaps the same time we were walking to the post office and enjoying our
daughter there was another person, someone we know, losing her daughter. As her pastor, I went to visit this member in
her home yesterday after hearing the news. There was much sorrow in that place. It was the darkest, most painful space I have
been in since coming to this ministry last summer.
Since last night I have spent some time thinking about the
brightness of light and the emptiness of darkness, and how thinly separated they
can be at times. Being a pastor, and also
being in the midst of preparing a sermon, I thought primarily about spiritual
light and spiritual darkness.
We live as fallen people in a fallen world. There is no shortage of evidence of the pervasiveness
of sin throughout the world, and as a Christian I know that the evidence is as close
as my own heart. In the opening verses of his Gospel John
reminds us that in Christ "Light
shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
The verse
at the top of this post is from Paul, writing to the church at Rome. As I continue to serve God among my
congregation during this difficult time I do so knowing that I have no answer
to the question of why God allowed this person to die at this time.
But what I do know is that no circumstance in life, no
matter how joyous or painful, takes away the hope that we have as people of
faith in Christ. As we grieve we may not
be in a place of rejoicing, but we are in a place of prayer, praying to the one
who is, and always will be, the truest Light.
The darkness has not overcome the Light of Christ, and it
never will. Amen.
Scripture quotations
are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by
Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All
rights reserved.
