"A Deep and Dazzling Darkness," a sermon by Dr. Steven Bishop, Lecturer in Old Testament, given on March 8, 2007, in Christ Chapel

I’ve always been afraid of the dark. I was the only one of three children who insisted, before night lights were available, that we leave the bathroom light on all night so I could see it from my room. The worst moments of my fear of darkness were those when my father sent me outside after dark to roll up the windows in his truck. It was pitch black around our house and I had to go only about 50 feet but it was the most heart pounding 50 feet I ever traversed in my life. Even now, under certain circumstances at night, I expect someone or something to jump out of the shadows and consume me. I’m sure I’m not alone in this fear. Please tell me I’m not.

We have a fascination with darkness. We use it as a metaphor in paradoxical ways. The dark night of the soul is ultimately a good thing because it brings us into a deeper relationship with God. The psalmists’ do not share such a positive view of the darkness, it is something from which one does not return.

Seventeenth century poets found darkness to be a proper metaphor for the experience of the divine, and the night was a place one would desire to be. Henry Vaughan, in his poem The Night, meditates upon Nicodemus’ coming to Jesus at night. Vaughan finds the night, a moment of spiritual illumination, more desirable than the day. His poem concludes with a meditation on God:

There is in God, some say,

A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here

Say it is late and dusky, because they

See not all clear.

O for that night! Where I in him

Might live invisible and dim.

To be swallowed up in the dazzling darkness of God is for Vaughan more to be desired than living in ordinary time with the fluctuations of night and day.

Vaughan was not alone, there were others who saw that an association of light with God was not the only truth about God. Not only did God embrace the opposites of night and day, but one needed to be mindful that there was something about the darkness that made God most accessible.

The great poet and Anglican divine John Donne, in his melancholy way, perceived that in the moments of longing for union with God the lack of light could be an aid in knowing God. In A Hymn to Christ, at the Author’s Last Going into Germany , Donne was certain that he would die on the crossing from England and so said goodbye to his life and loved ones and declared his deepest desire was to be joined to God. In the last stanza of his poem he declares:

Churches are best for prayer, that have least light:

To see God only, I go out of sight:

And to ‘scape stormy days, I choose

An everlasting night.

In Genesis 15 we have two scenes involving darkness with a third enigmatic element of the dark figuring prominently. We have two promises that expand well beyond the world of Abram and his hopes of seeing them fulfilled. They are indeed promises deferred.

In the first scene of darkness Abram is taken outside to view the Middle Eastern night sky bursting with brilliance and pin pricks of light. Count them Abram, if you can. As the stars fill the great expanse of heaven so your descendants will be.

The second scene is a bit non-sequential. Its purpose is to introduce and seal a new promise. A promise sealed by fire, blood and death. After preparing the animals for the covenant making ritual a deep sleep comes over Abram. This is the same deep sleep that came over Adam when from his own flesh a companion would be made. It is a sleep that is induced by God. The same deep sleep appears in 1 Samuel and in Isaiah. David takes the spear and water jar from near Saul’s head but no one wakes up because the Lord has caused a deep sleep to fall upon them. Isaiah warns the inhabitants of Jerusalem that their lack of response to his message is due to the fact that God has poured out a spirit of deep sleep upon them. Throughout the Genesis passage one thing is unmistakably clear: God initiates, orchestrates, participates in the making and sealing of the promise.

The most mysterious element in this story appears when Abram is in the state of deep sleep. A deep and terrifying darkness falls upon him. This is a unique expression in the Old Testament. Translators have had a time trying to get the sense of the expression just right. The New Jerusalem Publication Society bible translates it thus: “great dark dread descended.” King James: “horror of great darkness fell”. New Jerusalem Bible: “a deep dark dread descended”.

This ‘dread’ appears in a number of places in the Old Testament, most of them associated with God. Many are found in military texts or involve military images. Perhaps the most illuminating is Exodus 23:7 where God promises the Israelites, as they prepare for battle, that “I will send my terror (dread) before you.” This terror cripples the enemies of the Israelites and announces the approaching theophany of God. It is a dread inspired by the Divine Presence.

Jesus is going to Jerusalem , a place where prophets meet their end. The climactic episodes of his time there are associated with darkness. In darkness Jesus prays for deliverance or steadfastness, in the night he is arrested, under the cover of darkness he is tried and betrayed. Perhaps we should read this as the dread darkness that is associated with the appearance of God. It is a darkness associated with promise. It is a darkness where promises are sealed with death, blood and fire. The darkness has a strange push pull on our lives. At once, it terrifies and assures. It touches our primal fears and our most profound hope. It invites us into a way of life that fills us with dread and with joy.

I am still afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of what might be out there, what hidden thing might suddenly appear and change the course of my life. It is somewhat like the deep dark dread of God. It too can suddenly appear and change the course of my life, but because it is the darkness through which Jesus walked, it is strangely, paradoxically attractive.

There is in God, some say,

A deep, but dazzling darkness;. . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . .