Recently, I took my kids outside on a late Thursday afternoon. It was overcast, but warm enough to do some baseball tee work with my son and play soccer with my daughter. After a refreshing half-hour, we returned inside to my wife who was just finishing up work and ready to make dinner. Upon entering the house, I heard my wife gasp. She had just received a text message from her hometown that their parish priest had been shot and needed prayers. We prayed immediately. As minutes ticked by, the dreaded news finally came. Father was dead.
Within the next half-hour, details trickled in through text and phone calls. Because my wife’s hometown was a small community, word traveled quickly. Soon, it was clear that the priest who had served the community for nearly 20 years had been targeted in an assassination attempt. Little was known why. But it was clear that Fr. had been brutally murdered just steps away from the church building he had said his last mass just a couple hours previous.
Shock. Grief. Questions of ‘why?’ I did not know the man well. We had spoken on a couple of occasions. He had been a concelebrant at our wedding in my wife’s hometown a decade ago, and we had seen him over the years during our visits back to my wife’s hometown. But predominantly I heard about his actions in the community more than I saw them. All of them pointed to him being a good man and pastor to his people, and I could not understand why the violent act had taken place.
And then we lost power.
Thankfully, I was able to finish preparing dinner before we lost power. Yet, as we approached bedtime, the combination of twilight and an overcast day meant our house was getting dark quickly. It was at this moment that I began to reflect on the Apostles on Good Friday afternoon. They were not present at Jesus’ crucifixion, but undoubtedly they had heard news coming in fragments. The updates would have come in: ‘He’s been sent to Pilate…… now to Herod……They brutally scourged Him…..Pilate is letting the people crucify Him…..He’s wearing a crown of thorns as he carries his cross outside the city…He is nailed, hanging there until he dies…..” Nature would have given them the final indication that Jesus was dead.
The followers of Jesus would have sat there on that Friday evening as the darkness descended around them full of shock, grief, and asking themselves the question ‘Why was Jesus brutally murdered?’ He had done nothing to deserve this. He had only made the people around Him better. They would have sat there, hidden and afraid, trying to make sense of what had happened. The darkness around them was emblematic of their emotional state. There were no answers. It was the same way that our household felt on that numb Thursday evening.
This was not the end of Jesus, even though it may have felt like it to the Apostles. We know what happens on Sunday morning. Yet, it was important for them to go into the darkness and stay there. For one, they had no choice not to. If Jesus had willingly laid down His life, then the darkness was where they were supposed to be. But more importantly, by entering into the darkness, we can be assured that this is not our final calling. When we experience it, we know that we are not at home in the darkness. But when we cannot do anything but sit in the darkness, we have to wait for the light to shine on us again. It is in the moments of darkness that we, just like the Apostles, are called to hope. This hope is not a clear path out. Rather, it is a complete trust that God is doing something good that will dispel the darkness. But until that time, we sit and we wait in the darkness, holding onto hope in Him.
