Light from Darkness

Tuesday 4/10/2012 4:52 AM

Sunday morning our choir sang at a sunrise service at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Long Beach.  The speaker’s message focused on John 20:1, “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark…”  He reminded us that God works in darkness; while it was dark the stone was rolled away and while it was dark Jesus rose from the grave.  He also read Genesis 1:1-3 and noted that God created the world formless and empty, where darkness was over the deep.  Then the Spirit of God hovered over the darkness and God spoke his word into that darkness and brought forth light.  Verse 5 suggests that the order of the first day has evening first, then morning.  God brings light from darkness.  The speaker reminded us that when our lives are the darkest God moves in to bring light.  When things seem as bad as they can get, if we speak the word of God into our lives, we can be assured that God will be at work.

My reading today includes Ephesians 2:1-4, which reminds me of the speaker’s message.  “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.  Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.  But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.”

The first verse describes how I am dead in the sin in which I used to live.  It would seem that living in sin and transgression, following the ways of this world, leads to death.  Following my natural instincts, gratifying every desire and thought I have, like the world suggests, leads to darkness, emptiness and death.  God enters into that darkness of death and makes me alive in Christ.  In John 3:19 Jesus said, “Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”  My natural tendency is to move from light to darkness, from life to death.  God, in his mercy, enters that darkness and death to restore me to light and life.  Thank God for his love and mercy.