In the coming days, we will celebrate the birth of a Savior who emerged from the darkness of the womb into a dark period of history to love us toward his True Light. This is the message which we have heard from him and declare to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.вЂќ 1 John 1:5

Knowing this, that we are not alone in the dark, that light will eventually come, we can let the darkness do its needful work in us. If you have been Welcoming the Light with me during this Advent season, you will have noticed by now that every dayвЂ™s appearance of light is a unique event with some days putting on a colorful show and others slowly dissolving into gray, but it does arrive. Barbara Brown Taylor writes reassuringly that she has вЂњlearned things in the dark that have saved life over and over again.вЂќ There are some lessons that can be learned only in the dark.Д®verything from tulip bulbs to sleeping children needs darkness. When God spoke light into darkness, he didnвЂ™t eliminate darkness, but, rather, set boundaries around it for our good. When the darkness seemed especially menacing to our sons, we would sing this truth in their bedrooms: вЂњSo you are safe вЂthough the light grows dim.

This week, the earthвЂ™s axis will tilt us northerners to our farthest distance from the sunвЂ™s warmth, and even if we begin to feel the distance in our bones, the Lord of Creation is subject neither to solstice nor to circadian rhythms. Psalm 139:12 Comfort in the Darkness of Winter Solstice God is just as present in the darkness as he is in the light, as DavidвЂ™s psalm delights to comfort us:ДЇor darkness is as light with you. It all begins as the perfect excuse for window candles and quiet evenings at home, but daylight keeps slipping through our fingers until, mole-like, we emerge from our holes into morning darkness and wash dinner dishes before blackened windows. Late autumn temperatures in the northeast United States require a certain fortitude of speech to continue naming the cold вЂњautumnвЂќ when, clearly, the chill in the air and the snow underfoot are speaking the language of вЂњwinter.вЂќ My giant sunflowers bowed their heads in October, the pumpkins moldered in the compost pile long before Thanksgiving, and the Advent calendar ticks away the days toward the winter solstice, but mostly, I understand winterвЂ™s arrival by its long daily darkness.

Light in darkness scripture