A Christmas Thought

A Christmas Thought

At Christmas time, we celebrate that Christ came into our time and our space, fully God and fully Man, to take on the ultimate darkness of all time.  He came to demonstrate sacrificial, redemptive love for us, hopeless humankind.

For all the glory he did for us, we, all of us, still fight with darkness in our lives.   Many of us during this holiday season will find ourselves singing or say joy to the world or other song or statements of joy and happiness.  But, underneath this we are dealing with one of the two darkness’s that Hemen, an author of Psalms 39 and 88 speaks to: outward darkness due to difficult circumstances in out life or inward darkness, due to having no sense of God’s presence. 

Hemen was not the typical Psalm writers of the laments.  It appears to me all the rest ended their Laments end in hope.  Hemen’s are the exception.  He takes off the gloves so to speak and giving God his honest unfiltered thoughts and feelings in these psalms.   He even ends Psalm 88 with the last word “darkness” This is a man that is God fearing, God loving and devout.   But he had a cry of darkness he had to express.

There is a lining to these Psalms’.  They give us four points of hope in times of darkness.  They are in there, you just have to look, you will find them.

1.        Darkness can last a long time. It will not matter what you do to end it;

2.       These are often the places to uniquely learn about God’s grace;

3.       These are times that sometimes can be the best situation for you to grow into your greatness

4.       They can be framed or reframed to lead us into a deeper and more spiritual self

Least we not forget, even Christ had his own cry in darkness: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Matthew 27:45-46

Have a great holiday, and Merry Christmas and remember out of the darkness good things can come.

Mark Schmidt, Th.D