LATE NIGHT QUESTIONS

(Preached on Sunday, February 20, 2005)

He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”                                                                   -John 3:2

 

There are some questions that can only be asked after the sun has set and the stars have come out.

The blanket of night somehow provides the necessary shelter and security to share fears and doubts that by the light of day we keep hidden and buried deep within.

Anyone who can remember an adolescent sleepover or early morning college bull session knows exactly what I am talking about here.

There is an increasing freedom that comes with the approach of midnight and beyond.

It becomes easier to let down one’s guard.

 

Thousands of years ago, people gathered at night around fires and gazed into the heavens.

They questioned and wondered.

Why is there something instead of nothing?

Who created all this?

Why am I here?

What is the meaning of it all?

This is the beginning of religion.

This is the beginning of faith.

Faith begins with questions.

Faith begins with wonder.

Faith begins in darkness.

Creation, life, begins in darkness covering the earth.

And only then is there light.

 

In the last 150 years, we human beings, as a species, have become immersed in and surrounded by light.

The invention of the light bulb and electricity and neon lights and handy light switches were marvelous technological advances.

But like anything good taken to excess there is a down side and with all this light, we have nearly driven away the darkness and night.

As a result, we have become fearful of the dark and view it as only an evil instead of as a nurturing, growing time.

 

We forget that we have our origins in the dark; conceived in the dark nights of parental lovemaking; nurtured for nine months in the dark womb; our bodies need the darkness of sleep to grow and be recharged.

In the same way, just as our spirits need light to flourish, they also need dark to grow.

 

One of the greatest spiritual writers of all time, John of the Cross, knew this truth.

If he were your spiritual director and you explained to him that you were going through a dark, painful patch in life and asked him: “What’s wrong with me?” he would likely answer:

“There’s nothing wrong with you; indeed, there’s a lot right with you.  You’re where you should be right now: in the desert, letting the merciless sun do its work; in a dark night, undergoing an alchemy of soul; in exile, lamenting on a foreign shore so that you can better understand your homeland; in the garden, sweating blood that needs to be sweated to live out your commitments; being pruned, undergoing spiritual chemotherapy, to shrink the tumors of emotional and spiritual dead-wood that have built up from wrong-turns taken; sitting in the ashes like Cinderella, because only a certain kind of humiliation will ready your soul for celebration.”

He’d also tell you that this can be a good place to be, a biblical and mystical place.

 

He would tell you that it was not a bad thing that Nicodemus went to visit Jesus at night.

He might point out to you that it is often at night, when the bright glare of the daylight has disappeared, that one is actually able to see more clearly.

Blaise Pascal was converted when he saw the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from about half past ten in the evening until half past midnight, when it was deepest night, then he had a vision and cried out “fire, fire, fire” so bright was the light, all the more bright because of the darkness.

And St. Francis, plagued with poor eyesight, received his stigmata when he saw a crucified Seraph descend from heaven, “sometime before dawn.”

 

There is nothing wrong with meeting God on some bright, beautiful, exquisite day, when everything seems to come together and it is all just right.

But there is also nothing wrong with stumbling around, groping for your way in the darkness, unsure where you are and where you are going.

It does not mean you are evil; it does not mean you are bad; it does not mean you are abandoned by God.

In fact, quite the opposite, you may actually be closer to God than ever before.

Nicodemus certainly seemed lost.

He not only comes to Jesus under the cover of night, he also seems extremely dense, not quite getting it, never quite understanding Jesus.

But that is okay, for John tells us, “God so loved the world,” that God came to the world as one of us.

Not so that we could know more about God, but so we could come to better know God personally, intimately; so that we could know ourselves as loved by God.

 

What we can discover in the night is not more knowledge, but a relationship.

And relationships do not bring us all the answers to our late night questions, but they bring us something better.

They bring us support, companionship, a friend who will be with us as we struggle with the darkness, and the doubt, and the questions.

 

We all have times of darkness in our lives, both personally and communally.

We have our good seasons, but we have our seasons too where we lose relationships, lose health, lose friends, lose spouses, lose children, lose jobs, lost prestige, lose our grip, lose our dreams, lose our meaning, and end up humbled, alone, even lonely.

We have those seasons of night communally as well; as a nation, as a city, as a company, as a school, as a church.

Just as we struggle with this reality as individuals, organizations, especially churches, do so as well.

There are some churches, that seem to be able to be with God only in the light, never in the night.

They are only able to worship in bright lights, happy days, singing nothing but bright, upbeat melodies.

I hope that is not our church.

We need those bright times in our life together.

But to really grow and to help others grow, we also need to know our dark times.

For there is nothing worse than that bright, “happy church” when you, personally, are going through a time of darkness.

Such a “happy church” with perpetually grinning clergy, and smiling ushers, and everything so positive, so upbeat, glorious, and grand, can be terrible depressing.

If you happen to enter such a place with a bit of shadow in your soul, instead of going away uplifted you will often find yourself going away feeling more guilty and more isolated than before.

 

Novelist Dan Wakefield describes a conversation he once had with Henri Nouwen.