The people living in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land
    of the shadow of death
    a light has dawned.
– Matthew 4:16 / Isaiah 9:2

Two millennia passed before I slipped into this world, and fell.

And yet my bruised bones hold a shared memory of those long days of nights before the dawn, when the specter of death swaddled the earth in a morbid shroud, bestowing mortality as a ghastly birthright.

to live was to lose
    sooner or later
    more or less
and so
    doors barred
    and windows boarded
we hoarded
        for me and mine
    the first and best
    scraps or shackles
        for the rest
    and nothing
        for the one who gave it all

From that suffocating fabric of our reality, soaked with blood and sweat and tears and wrung out by desperate writhing, dripped a twisted pantheon. False gods of power and pleasure, wealth and wisdom. Among them, we honored none more than ourselves. Drunk on pain and poisoned promises, we elevated creation above creator, doing deals with death in dark alleys, backs turned on the very giver of life who alone held forth hope of freedom from our curse.

Chains tightened. Pride stiffened. Hope dimmed.

Even the chosen people, redeemed from slavery and raised up as a light for the nations, first neglected then abused and at last traded away their sacred vocation before sitting down in sackcloth among hope's dying embers.

Then came the life giver, the light giver, he to us because we could not breach the veil and go to him. The news of his coming cut a horizon into the stifling shroud, a burning line of healing, spun of pure gold and vital crimson, revealing that graceful curve and burst of light where earth and heaven kiss.

Wherever Jesus walked, bright gardens of grace and truth sprung up. But darkness could not grasp the light, neither to resist nor to perceive. Few believed and fewer received him, even his own.

On the cross, evil coiled and struck and sank its fangs. Hope breathed its last, then slowly counted to three and breathed anew.

Death, not life, is the fleeting vapor now.

And yet who can believe our report? “The Kingdom is at hand,” he said, and so it was, and is, in every bond broken and heart healed and relationship reborn. Here, yes, but not fully. Not yet. Darkness remains wherever unbelief invites its dominion.

But see how the color of the sky has changed. No longer do we grope in a formless void where right and wrong bear no distinction. In the rising brightness of holy love, evils take shape, revealing grotesque silhouettes once buried in the murk. These long shadows need not unsettle us. This slowly growing glowing need not leave us in doubt. This is the way of sunrises.

And what of us, we children of the dawn? The light that dispels also impels us into the dark places. Yet I hesitate. Memories arise from deep in my bones of a suffocating emptiness, a bewildering despair of which I want no part. Old wounds throb. My instinct for comfort conspires. Better to remain in the light.

But then I recall: we are the light, holy flames of love, meant not to be hidden but to shine. From the presence of our creator we emerge with glowing faces, unveiled, unashamed, nothing to hide and nowhere to hide from what we have become. Wherever we walk, if we dare walk as the light giver walked, luminous echoes of Eden sprout beneath our feet.

Lord, give me new eyes, eyes that see the darkest places of this world not as forsaken but as mere shadows cast over strongholds of false hope, now laid bare by the pinking rays of morning. Mend me. Warm me. Make me brave. Send me into these dawn shadows.