Hope in the Darkness
Author: Chris Castaldo, PhD
December 07, 2023
As a teenager working in the mall during Christmas, I was the guy who ran products from the warehouse to the store clerks. This cavernous stockroom was 6,000 square feet and filled wall-to-wall with boxes.
On one occasion, I found myself in the back of the windowless warehouse opposite the door when someone turned off the lights. There I was, alone in the dark with 15,000 boxes between the light switch and me. I couldn’t see an inch before my face. I know what you’re thinking: just find an aisle and walk toward the door! Yeah, maybe if there weren’t boxes haphazardly piled everywhere.
I remember what I felt during those thirty minutes of meandering around the room: isolation, fear, and dread. It was the kind of defining moment that is all too common in the human experience.
After the twenty-ninth minute, I crawled around a set of boxes, and there, in the distance, I saw a dim sign labeled, “Exit.” I knew that below the sign was a door, and beside the door was a light switch. At once, a new sensation emerged: hope.
What does this little story have to do with Advent? Everything. Jesus entered history and said, “I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Apart from God’s incarnate Son, we face a future that is ultimately dark and hopeless. But there’s good news. Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the Father—Light of Light, very God of very God—came down from heaven to shed his blood for our sins, and to rise victorious from the grave. He is thus our exodus from guilt and shame, our deliverance from the shadows of despair, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
This, my friends, is our only hope in the darkness.
Chris Castaldo, PhD, is lead pastor of New Covenant Church of Naperville and author the book, The Upside Down Kingdom.
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