When Goodness Goes Dark | The Easter Week Series
Elizabeth Moore
It’s night, about 10pm.
I go outside to the cold and the wind and the dark. Our house is on a lake and water rhythmically crashes against land, again, again, again. A fleece blanket wraps around my shoulders and I sit facing the lake, my feet tucked underneath me.
I’m here for one reason: to familiarize myself with the dark.
“You ask darkness to teach you what you need to know.”
For the first twenty-something years of my life, darkness has felt scary. Unfamiliar. Something to fear and avoid.
As I get older, I’ve seen this darkness isn’t only outside of me; it’s inside of me too. It feels like abandonment, or like I’ve done something wrong. It’s loneliness and cold fear. It’s guilt and shame and acting like everything is fine when it’s not.
But even our darkness is as light to Him.
Darkness is a gift—the gift of suffering, the gift of sadness. In the darkness, we let go of our illusions of control and cling desperately to trust. Pain crushes us until we are set free.
This Holy Week, we’ve walked through hosannas, hangovers, storms, thresholds, and shame. And today, on Good Friday, we walk in the dark.
“Into your hands I commit my spirit.” - Luke 23:46
Today, the innocent rebel is scourged, stripped, and slayed. There is so much blood, coursing from his temples, his wrists, his back, his Spirit.
“‘God will provide a lamb for the offering, my son,’ Abraham told Isaac.” - Genesis 22:8
And here He is—the Lamb of God, on Good Friday—pouring out His blood, walking in the the darkness with us.
"How can this be good?" we wonder, as blood dries at the foot of the cross. Clutching our fleece blankets, wrapping them a little tighter around our shoulders, we want to understand. We hear the pounding of the waves, feel the bite of the cold, and darkness surrounds us. We are disarmed, out of control, unable to defend ourselves. We can’t see in the dark—but maybe that’s exactly where we need to be.
Even the darkness is as light to Him. He is making a way.
“New life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”