In the midst of darkness

DAILY BYTE

Praise of the Lord is a fitting response to the ways God relates to us, as ordinary people. In the greatest gesture of love and solidarity ever known, God became one of us... a simple human being, vulnerable to pain, sickness, temptation, and even death and all because God wanted to be one with us... to feel what we feel, to mourn what we mourn, to struggle, and to need.

In this gesture God added a dimension to God's limitless capacity for understanding, fulfilling the very essence of the meaning of compassion: to suffer with.

When we read Psalm 148, and when we consider what it means to praise, we think of emotions like joy, elation, utter happiness, sometimes even euphoria. In my mind I actually see dancing and jumping up and down and hands raised up.

Yet, I wonder if there is not another aspect to what it means to praise. When we face the realities of our current situations, both in our larger community and also as individuals, we are certain to feel the tension between the elated praise called for in the psalm and the complexity of emotions we experience when we consider the brokenness of our world.

Some of us may have been blessed with elation over these past few days and may be ready to dance and sing in thanksgiving, but others of us may be caught in cracks of despair dealing with family illness, serious financial woes, or just plain loneliness.

If we consider what life is like for our brothers and sisters to our north in Zimbabwe, we feel this tension between praise and brokenness. For in order to praise the Lord rightly and honestly we must examine this shadow side, this dimension of praising, which on the surface is bereft of joy and happiness. What does it mean to praise God in the dark?

For a little more than two months I have been a minister in the historically black township of Guguletu, outside of Cape Town. In many ways these last two months have been a time for me to learn what it means to praise God in the dark.

A Sunday does not go by when tears do not spring to my eyes as I listen to these peoples’ hymns and prayers, to the rhythm of their dance and the jingle of the bell. And what a brilliant, heavenly sound they make. These grannies, young adults, and children have no problem praising God in the dark, since in a way they know better than me that true praise must emerge from darkness. Otherwise, it is incomplete. In these last few months, I have been the one struggling to praise God in the face of hopelessness.

What darkness do you find in your life? How do you praise in the midst of it?

GUIDING SCRIPTURE

1 Peter: 9

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light.