Scripture: Exodus 19:9-16.
Once a Japanese man was invited for a conference in one of the European countries. He arrived on the particular day and was received by an European. This European friend was behaving very differently towards the Japanese visitor. The European took him to a Restaurant and he introduced the meal like this to the Japanese Friend. This is platee , this is spoony, this is forkee, and now you can eatee. This Japanese friend felt a bit bad about the attitude of the European host but he kept himself cool and calm. On that evening the Japanese person had to speak in a public meeting and the European friend was also sitting along with him on the dais.
When the time came for the Japanese person to speak, this European friend again pulled him by saying Now go and Speechee. But the Japanese person stood before the great crowd and spoke in very good English for half an hour and came back and seated near the European who was already put to shame and then whispered in his ears “how was my speechee?”
Similarly most us have different opinion about other people and when it comes to God we have a whole lot of ideas and many of them would sound funny also.
I am going to ask you ask you a question, where is God, though it may sound silly, what will be your answer? You may respond by saying, God is in heaven or above or everywhere and so on. Or you may shoot another question back like this if I truly know where God is why I would have come to study theology at all. And if I am going to further ask you as to how God lives? Many of us I am sure would reply that God is seated on a big throne and reigns the whole universe. The New Testament gives us a portrait of how God is, it says that God resides in an unapproachable light and in a marvelous light. Today I have a surprise for you. Do you know that God likes darkness and even lives in utmost darkness? Does it sound unbelievable? Yes, it is true, this is not my invention, but a discovery of many biblical writers themselves.
For people of Israel, the law or the torah is the bible and in it the 10 commandments are very very important. Today’s reading explains the context of such a law that was given for the first time.
Chapter 19 of Exodus, verse 9 says that the Lord said to Moses, I am going to come to you in dense cloud for giving those laws for the first time. The reason stated is that the people may hear when God speaks with Moses and people can trust Moses forever. And there was thick darkness present as God desended according to Exo 20:21.
Darkness or absence of light is mostly understood in terms of evil, satanic, dangerous and even death. But quiet interestingly Yahweh God, who is the creator of Light in this Universe, at the right and precious moment of making a covenant with His chosen people of Israel on Mount Sinai, to give law for the first time surrounded Himself with a dense cloud or in otherwords darkness.
When I tried to study about the association of God with darkness, I was astonished to the core, that there are number of passages supporting this idea. But usually we are carried away by the Greek philosophy of dualism in which light is attributed to goodness and darkness to evil. Let me offer you a glimpse of what I learnt from the scriptures.
1. At the time of creation, God created light according to Gen1:3 but the preceding verse says that darkness was covering the face of the deep even before light was created. So which came first and what was given preference by God is a question. And God did not separate Darkeness from Light and throw darkness away as we do with the grains or the weeds. Instead God separated Light from darkness. More or less we have each day both light and darkness naturally equal. Can we imagine a day without darkness in which we take enough rest?
2. God spoke to Abraham according to Gen 15:12 and made a covenant with him and that time a terrible darkness descended upon Abraham.
3. King David in II Samuel 22:10 &12 sings his song of thanksgiving in that he says there was thick darkness under the feet of God and God made darkness around him a canopy.
4. King Solomon also called wisest of all, testifies as recorded in I Chro 6:1 and I kings 8:12 that the Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness. For many of us darkness is scary and terrifying.
5. Job too acknowledges in Job 22:12 in which He says that Thick clouds enwrap him, so that he does not see, and he walks on the dome of heaven.
6. In the New Testament we have many incidents in which Jesus was associated with darkness. The first ever goodnews about the birth of Jesus was announced to shepherds in darkness. Jesus was found praying even when it was still dark in the morning.-Mk.1:35. Jesus choose to walk on the waters to reach his disciples in the darkness. –John 6:16.
Jesus introduced the practice of euchrist during the dark night`s last supper. He suffered more than on the cross in the garden of Gethsemane during the night when he was betrayed. There was Darkness surrounding everywhere when Jesus died on the cross.Jesus` Resurrection was also witnessed by a woman very early in the morning while it was still dark.
Book of Psalms, Isaiah, Genesis, Joshua, Amos too contains many relevant resources to this understanding. I can keep quoting many passages and incidents in the bible where many important moments were associated with darkness and God is also part of it. I am not here to compel or discard your imagination of God. We have the freedom to think in our own way. But I would like to motivate, inspire and convince you that God is not only a God of limited imaginations as we think. God is beyond all human imaginations. He is a God of Light as well as God of darkness and He is a God of all Colours. There is no partiality with God. He loves each one of us and everything without any bias and let us enlarge our understanding about God as our Good Lord leads us.
[Paul Davis, the leader of this meditation is a third year BD student in Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute , Chennai, India.]
