Pastor’s Corner December 2007
Entering the Darkness
I think when I was little, I was a little scared of the dark. We used to play Hide and Seek outside at night and I would make sure to hide in a place I knew very well and a place that wasn’t too far from home. In the light I was fine. I could go anywhere I wanted, but there was something uneasy about the dark, something I didn’t like.
When I think of Advent, I think of darkness. It represents a time of wonder and questioning; A time in which we wonder and question if God is truly there with us. Is God in our heartache and pain? Is God in our suffering and strife? Is God in the violence we see around us every day, in the addictions, in the fear, in the poverty, in the diseases, in the cancer, in the deaths? Does he enter the valley of the shadow of death? These dark times are scary for us. They make us uneasy many times and test our faith, but Advent is a great reminder that in the midst of darkness, at the end of our ropes, God is there.
During the Second World War the US Army was forced to retreat from the Philippines. Some of their soldiers were left behind, and became prisoners of the Japanese. The men called themselves “ghosts”, souls unseen by their nation, and were forced on the infamous Bhutan Death March, forced to walk over 70 miles, knowing that those who were slow or weak would be bayoneted by their captors or die from dysentery and lack of water. Those who made it through the march spent the next three years in a hellish prisoner-of-war camp. By early 1945, 513 men were still alive at the Cabanatuan prison camp, but they were giving up hope. The US Army was on its way back, but the POW’s had heard the frightening news that prisoners were being executed as the Japanese retreated from the advancing U.S. Army.
Their wavering hope was however met by one of the most magnificent rescues of wartime history. In an astonishing feat 120 US Army soldiers and 200 Filipino guerrillas outflanked 8000 Japanese soldiers to rescue the POW’s.
Alvie Robbins was one of the rescuers. He describes how he found a prisoner muttering in a darkened corner of his barracks, tears coursing down his face.
“I thought we’d been forgotten,” the prisoner said.
“No, you’re not forgotten,” Robbins said softly. “You’re heroes. We’ve come for you.”
Often in life we can start to give up hope, to feel that God has forgotten us, abandoned us to dark and hurtful experiences, but the birth of Christ reminds us, “No, you’re not forgotten!” Jesus picks us up, finds us in the darkness and says, “I’ve come for you.” I’ve entered your world and I’m going to carry you through this.
This Advent Season, remember that though the world is dark in many ways, that Jesus has come. He has taken our pain and suffering, entered our darkness and he is bringing light and hope! You are never alone, never alone!