When I find myself in times of trouble, Jesus Christ comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, “let it be”
And in my hour of darkness, he is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, “let it be”
With a little change in Beatles beautiful iconic song “Let it Be!” the words fit on the text this Sunday morning. In Nicodemus’ hour of darkness, Jesus is standing right in front of him speaking words of wisdom. Or as the beautiful bulletin covers depicts shining as a light of comfort and insight in the hour of darkness.
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the jews. He came to Jesus by night.
With this small but evocative detail, John tells us that Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. The learned but troubled man came in the dead of night. He hid in the shadows. He had watched and listened to Jesus from a safe distance. Because he, Jesus, was a dangerous man, a radical, yes a blasphemer they said. And yet, Nicodemus came at night.
There was something that kept him up at night, nagging in the corners of his mind and his faith. So, he came in the shadows, hidden in the darkness, where no one could see him or judge him.
In my hour of darkness,
He is standing right in front of me.
Speaking words of wisdom” Let it be!”
We envision this Nicodemus moving down the quiet streets from where all the people of daylight have retreated. His steps are softened and silent and he walks in the concealing shadows of night. If not outright secretive, Nicodemus’s approach in the darkness at least suggest the desire to avoid attention, to keep it quiet and private.
Nicodemus comes in the darkness and ask these deep nightly questions of faith … wanting to shed light on his understanding. “How can this be…?” he repeatedly asked Jesus. “How can I be born again… where does the wind blow… what does it mean? “
In my hour of darkness
He is standing right in front of me. Speaking words of wisdom” Let it be!”
But. But the darkness and the hesitancy of Nicodemus may also be seen as inviting to us. In “Learning to Walk in The Darkn.” Barbara Brown Taylor observes that “new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in grow ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb. It starts in the dark.”
There is an almost nurturing quality to darkness that holds space for not only conversations and secrecy and privacy, but also for trust, beginnings and transformation.
The hiddenness of darkness makes it a relatively safe context to be and show vulnerability. In the darkness, Nicodemus can hesitate and ask questions he would never have dared to asked in public. Questions that have kept him up at night and to which he does not know the answers. In the safety of darkness, he can set aside his position as a leader in community and confess that he does not understand everything!
Darkness may make it easier for him to embrace his vulnerability – a vulnerability and a trust that is needed in order to understand.
In my hour of darkness
He is standing right in front of me. Speaking words of wisdom” Let it be!”
In the hours of darkness, at night, in the quiet corners of our home, in the soft pillows of our couch, with a steaming cup of tea or coffee or maybe a glass of Chardonnay, we have some of our best and deepest conversations, don’t we?
In the hours of darkness, maybe with a flickering candle blowing in the wind, we feel vulnerable and yet trusting to talk, to share, to be honest, to embrace the curses and blessing of being a human being. Because we feel safe, not 100% exposed or seen. The gentle embrace of shadows and darkness give space for honesty, vulnerability and trust.
Sometimes these nightly conversations are needed for our sanity and welfare. Sometimes they give us answers asked for, clarity and hope – other times they make us linger in our questions and concerns, but with the certainty that someone heard us, saw us, embraced us.
In my hour of darkness,
He is standing right in front of me. Speaking words of wisdom” Let it be!”
So, Nicodemus came in the shadows, hidden in the darkness, where no one could see him or judge him. And he asked questions of faith and doubt. “How can this be?”
All the answers of Jesus were as often was the case, filled with riddles and twists that made him dizzy but also pulled him deeper into the conversations. “How can I be born again…” Nicodemus asked. “How can anyone be born after having grown old like me; how can any one a second time enter the mothers’ womb? Tell me how!”
Oh, Nicodemus you mind is set on earthly things and earthly understanding – open up, see beyond, look up, Jesus gentle says in the hours of darkness.
Jesus is asking Nicodemus to admit his limits and to let go, trust even the things he does not fully understand. Let it Be. Let God be!
Jesus called Nicodemus to trust.
Jesus called for trust from a person who came in the darkness of night, in the safety of the shadows.
He called for trust from a person who wanted to apply simple logic of this life, this flesh and earth to a life born of the Spirit and God.
Jesus called for trust, because faith is trust.
In the dark, we must trust what we cannot see, that is where new life may begin.
Doesn’t trust begin in darkness, in accepting that we do not understand everything but have to trust… that God so loved the world and still loves this world and us in it ?
In my hour of darkness,
He is standing right in front of me. Speaking words of wisdom” Let it be!”
The author Barbare Brown Taylors book Learning to Walk in the Dark provides a way to embrace darkness and to find spirituality in that darkness.
Barbara Taylor is increasingly uncomfortable with our tendency to associate all that is good light light and lightness and al that is evil and dangerous with darkness.
Doesn’t God work in the nighttime as well, she asks?
Put aside your fears and anxieties and explore all that God has to teach us – in the light but also in the darkness, she asks.
She wants us to move away from our “solar spirituality” and ease our way into a “lunar spirituality” since like the moon, our experience of light and understanding waxes and wanes too.
Through and amidst darkness we might find courage to understand the world in new ways, to fell God’s presence also in the darkness and shadows,
Often it is in the darkness we grow the most. From a fetus to a child in the womb.
From a seed to a plant in the soil.
From the dark depression to the lightness of cure.
From the darkness of illness to the light og recovery.
From a nightly conversation of honesty and trust to a enlightened life of the day.
A certain kind of courage and strength begins in the darkness and corners of the shadow to emerge into the day and the hope.
So, let it be! Trust tells us. Faith calls us. Hope lifts us.
Let it be for God so loved the world with all is colorful splendor moments and gray ordinary days, all is light and darkness, all the diversity and similarities, that he gave his only son to that everyone who believes him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.
In my hour of darkness
He is standing right in front of me.
Speaking words of wisdom” Let it be!”
AMEN.