TO KNOW THE DARK, GO DARK

In the scriptures, notable things happen in the dark. Out of darkness, light is created. Looking at the night sky, God tells Abraham that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars. In the night, a pillar of fire leads the Hebrew slaves to freedom. And Jesus is born while shepherds watch their flocks by night.

Author Barbara Brown Taylor talks about the “solar spirituality” that is the basis of much of the prosperity gospel these days. God rewards the faithful with a sunny dose of health, wealth, and happiness. But what happens when life—or Christmas—feels like a long a long night or the day is filled with clouds and shadows? Taylor wants us to embrace a spirituality that finds gifts in darkness and nighttime. Rather than speaking of certainty and absolutes, perhaps the holy is revealed in mystery and unknowing.

Coming to this Christ Mass late at night, and past my bedtime, you should know, is itself a way to honor and love the darkness.

And speaking of the night, just where was Jesus born? In Luke Jesus is born in a manger. Yet a late first century source gives additional information about the life of Mary and other details. Here Jesus is born in a cave as picture in the Orthodox icon on your bulletin cover.

A cave is an ultimate place of hiding and protection. Orthodox icons also picture the resurrection in a cave as Jesus raises up Adam and Eve and all humanity from death. As one Orthodox writer explains, caves are places of darkness and mystery. Like the cave Christ entered at his birth, our hearts became the cave where God’s spirit dwells.

Robert Mcfarlane writes about caves and catacombs under land and cities, under forests and the meltwater of Greenland. “Since before we were Homo sapiens, humans have been seeking out spaces of darkness in which to find meaning,” he writes. Mcfarlane tells his children that we walk upon the thin crust above this raging space of matter, and we know nothing of it. Our sight stops at our toes. And sight is so bound up with modern ways of knowing. We can look up and see literally trillions of miles. We can see light coming from stars across the universe, across the galaxy. But we look down, and we can’t see beyond the grass or the pavement.

I remember touring a cave in Turkey. And “touring” is the right word for the curated experience we had. In this “tamed cave” there are ladders and ramps and lights so that nothing is scary or threatening.

When Barbara Brown Taylor was working on her book about learning to walk in the dark, she was contacted by someone inviting to visit a cave. She said, “so you’re a spelunker?” He replied, “No, I rescue stranded or lost spelunkers. I want you to come to a wild cave in West Virginia.” A “wild cave” means un-surveyed. Unlit. Unexplored. Unsafe.

Yet the dark cave experience was life-changing. As Taylor writes,

We got so deep in that cave, and we turned off our headlights, and (the caver) invited us to just sit and be in the dark. And it was like being embraced by my dark mother, who took me in her arms, and it was quiet, and nobody was going to sneak up on me, and I just ended up loving it. It was the perfect thing to do because that’s utter darkness. That’s not the darkness illuminated by campfires and shooting stars and beautiful full moons. That was just dark. And I was in no danger, except inside my mind.

The hymn text we will sing in a moment pictures the holy birth “when half-spent was the night.” For us in the northern hemisphere, we come together late on one of the longest nights of the year.

The farmer poet, Wendell Berry, invites us:

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark.
Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Christ is born, Christ comes, Christ is made known in beautiful, holy darkness. In this quiet, still place—in the cave of our hearts—is peace and hope beyond telling.

Receive the Child this holy night. Feast on him at this table. Behold him in both strangers and beloved ones. Ponder him in quiet moments of wonder and gratitude. Savor the grace and mystery. Welcome him in the darkness!