THE THICK DARKNESS

MOUNT SINAI

Ross Kingham

^{EX 20:18} When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance ¹⁹ and said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die."

^{EX 20:20} Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning."

^{EX 20:21} The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.

Frequently, we find ourselves in the hard place that is not dripping with honey; the wilderness, where it seems as though the Divine One does not exist. How we need eyes to see and hearts to sense the moving of the Spirit at least in the aftermath of such times of desolation, when we can look back and gasp, "Yes! Now I understand! My place of darkness was not a place apart from the living God, after all! In fact, I can now discern new forms in that darkness…that speak to me of the shape of the Divine."

In my work, I often come face to face with such places of darkness: plans go awry, promises are forgotten, people battle with deep questions of faith and of pain. I need to hear again this story, and be renewed. Darkness takes many forms: for example spiritual, relational, emotional, triggered by bodily illness or injury, or the stress of trauma.

Our story from Exodus is about the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses in Mt Sinai…and about what the Children of Israel experienced at that dynamic time of interaction between the Spirit of God and their leader…see verses 18-21….

……….‘Moses approached the thick darkness where God was’.

DARKNESS: The very place where we may discover God's mercy and salvation

It is true that the word "darkness" can often describe negatives like death, ignorance, sin and so on. The paradox is that darkness and shadows come to us all and by the grace of God can bring us to life‑changing insights and experiences. It is fascinating to look up the word ‘darkness’ in the scriptures and discover that it is the very place where humans discover God's mercy and salvation:

• As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abraham and a deep and terrifying darkness descended on him. (Gen 15:12). It was in this unnerving experience that God came close with blessing, promises and a new personal covenant.
• Jacob was running for his life and slept in a desolate place but awoke to say, Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. (Gen.28:16.)
• The people of Israel were saved from the Egyptian army in the darkness caused by God. (Ex.15).
• The same theme emerges in the passion story. There was darkness over the whole land and Jesus cried out, “My God, why have you deserted me?”  The awful moment of our Lord's crucifixion, when "from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour" Matt. 27:4.

There could be no darker place than Golgotha and yet precisely there, the gates were opening to a new relationship between God with human beings.

How the can the symbol of the Dark Night speak to us?

Of course it is much easier to study the theme of shadows in the Bible than to cope with our own darkness. Maybe our lives sometimes feel like a stormy ocean in deep darkness. But the Spirit is hovering over us too and the Creator is preparing to speak the Word to bring light out of darkness and new patterns of life out of chaos.

How attractive and obvious are signs and wonders, thunder, trumpet blasts, earthquake and smoke…….How easy it is to thinks that it is only in such dramatic interventions that God is to be found!

….But God is also to be found where there is thick darkness: this is the place where there are no distractions, where God’s presence and deeds are obscure. We need great patience to go into such a place, and to remain there long enough. To flee such a place is to be denied potential blessing and wisdom.

It is this mixture which bothers us. We want light all the time and some of the songs Christians sing encourage us to expect this:

"Not a shadow can rise
Not a cloud in the skies
But His smile quickly drives it away."

Such misleading words can create unrealistic expectations and lead people into a sense of failure and guilt.

Darkness (spiritual, emotional, relational) is not the province of Satan. Darkness is not therefore to be regarded by us as our enemy, our foe. Befriend it!

C Jung: “Show a man his darkness, and you show him light.”

Raine Maria Rilke: “Take away my demons, and you take away my angels.”

Darkness is the place of the absence of distraction. Some things, therefore, must of necessity, be faced.

It is the interiorizing of loving knowledge with which St John of the Cross is concerned in his teaching about the dark night of the soul.

The Dark Night. Silence is bound up with darkness. The Old Testament saw the vision of God, the God of Sinai, as an obscure vision, a knowledge of God in cloud and darkness, a knowledge of which one could speak only in metaphor and analogy. Here is the sharp contrast with the idols that can be seen and known directly, their forms discerned, their natures conceptualized, their names uttered, their territory and limits defined. The God of Israel, on the other hand, cannot be known in this way. So darkness is central to the Judaeo‑Christian understanding of God’s self-revelation. The eastern fathers speak of the 'divine darkness' and of knowing through 'unknowing’, agnosia. In Western Christianity it is expressed most memorably in the fourteenth‑century work The Cloud of Unknowing:

You will seem to know nothing and to feel nothing except a naked intent towards God in the depth of your being. Try as you might, this darkness and this cloud will remain between you and your God. You will feel frustrated for your mind will be unable to grasp him, and your heart will not relish the delight of his love.

But learn to be at home in this darkness. Return to it as often as you can, letting your spirit cry out to him whom you love. For if in this life you hope to feel and see God as he is in himself, it must be within this darkness and this cloud.'

‘I call to you, O Lord, from my quiet darkness. Show me your mercy and love. Let me see your face, hear your voice, touch the hem of your cloak. I want to love you, be with you, speak to you and simply stand in your presence. But I cannot make it happen. Pressing my eyes against my hands is not praying, and reading about your presence is not living in it.

But there is that moment in which you will come to me, as you did to your fearful disciples, and say: 'Do not be afraid; it is I’  Let that moment come soon, O Lord. And if you want to delay it, then make me patient.’ Amen.

Henri Nouwen, A Cry for Mercy

Night‑time sharpens, heightens each sensation;
Darkness stirs and wakes imagination.
Silently the senses abandon their defences;
Slowly, gently night unfurls its splendour.
Grasp it, sense it ‑ tremulous and tender;
Turn your face away from the garish light of day,
Turn your thoughts away from cold, unfeeling light
and listen to the music of the night.

Charles Hart, The Phantom of the Opera, Act 1, Scene 5

Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
    Than Simon on thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is in some famine-murdered land
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in hell must lie
If I this night before God's throne should stand.

Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.

Oscar Wilde, 1854‑1900

Pray for such a peace!