The images of darkness and light are so significant during this Relay for Life Event.
Here we use Darkness and Light to help us to tell our story.
Everyone who gathers here is touched by the disease of Cancer in some way. Like a thief in the night, cancer has robbed us and those we love from the life we want to live. When we think of cancer – we appropriately think of DARKNESS.
And while that darkness of cancer is real. The light tells us it is not all that is real. More than once I've heard people with cancer say, “I am more than a diagnosis. I am more than this disease.” That’s not a denial of the darkness. It is simply to say, “Darkness isn’t the only part of our story.” The light reminds us that there are survivors of cancer because of research, medicines, treatments, and communities that have pushed back on the darkness. When we think of those survivors and hope for a cure – we appropriately think of LIGHT.
So during this event, we once again tell the story of CANCER and CURE with the images of DARKNESS and LIGHT.
This is not unique or new with Relay for Life. The ancient words of the Bible show that these images of DARKNESS and LIGHT are really as old as creation. And they not only tell OUR story, they tell GOD’S story.
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and DARKNESS covered the face of the deep . . . Then God said, “Let there be LIGHT” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. Genesis 1:1-5
Some things to notice about this:
1. God did not create darkness, yet God works in it.
2. God created light with his word.
3. God did this on the first day of creation.
What I find so amazing about God is that God takes what He is given – even something like DARKNESS and makes it into something that serves HIS WILL. God did this from the beginning, on the first day of creation, when he created LIGHT and mixed it in with the DARKNESS that was already there.
In paring Light with Darkness, God created the beautiful rhythm of Day and Night which are vital to God’s design for creating and sustaining life.
Interestingly, in God’s hands, darkness becomes something beautiful.
In darkness, we are conceived in our mother’s womb, we find rest and sleep, we grow, we heal and we are restored. All things that we need.
In darkness, we must remember, God is at work too.
Eugene Petersen reminds us that God’s day begins at Sundown. When we are winding down and preparing to rest, God is just getting started . . . right there in darkness.
God speaks to us about this through the prophet Isaiah when he says:
“I will give you the treasures of darkness
and riches hidden in secret places,
so that you may know that it is I, the Lord,
the God of Israel, who call you by name.”
Isaiah 45:3
By walking through the night during this Relay for Life we, perhaps unknowingly, have been saying something about how beautifully God works in darkness.
The words of the Easter story in John’s gospel echo in my ears when I think about how God works in darkness.
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.” John 20:1
I love how John’s gospel echoes the Creation story in Genesis.
Here, we have God at work once again on the FIRST DAY – this time it is the FIRST DAY OF NEW CREATION! And notice once again, God is at work WHILE IT WAS STILL DARK.
Mary was walking in the dark toward Jesus’ tomb, expecting to find a dead body. She did not realize at all that God had been busy at work there in the darkness!
What we know that Mary didn’t know is that WHILE IT WAS STILL DARK, Jesus, the Light of the World, rose from the dead!
I don’t know of better news for people who find themselves walking through the darkest valley’s of cancer, mental illness, drug addiction, anxiety and uncertainty. While it was still dark, when we didn’t have a clue, when we were expecting to find death at best . . . God is at work rising the dead.
This is God’s story and our story: The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
How the Light Comes:
A Blessing for Christmas Day – Rev. Jan Richardson www.janrichardson.com
I cannot tell you
how the light comes.
What I know
is that it is more ancient
than imagining.
That it travels
across an astounding expanse
to reach us.
That it loves
searching out
what is hidden
what is lost
what is forgotten
or in peril
or in pain.
That it has a fondness
for the body
for finding its way
toward flesh
for tracing the edges
of form
for shining forth
through the eye,
the hand,
the heart.
I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will.
That it works its way
into the deepest dark
that enfolds you,
though it may seem
long ages in coming
or arrive in a shape
you did not foresee.
And so
may we this day
turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces
to let it find us.
May we bend our bodies
to follow the arc it makes.
May we open
and open more
and open still
to the blessed light
that comes.
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