Over a decade ago, I had the opportunity to visit Newgrange, a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland.
It is a tomb, shaped like a dome rising above the valley, with the interior accessible through a small entry way and a narrow stone passage. When I toured the site, the guide walked us into the inner chamber and pitch-dark blackness to experience a reenactment of the tomb’s most astonishing feature: the entrance was built with a roofbox that, at winter solstice each year, guides the sunlight to the back of the innermost chamber.
It’s an incredible, strange thing to stand in a tomb in the dark and, gradually, be enveloped by the golden slow of the sun—first as a slender beam of light and then as a wash of deepening gold. (If you’re curious about what it’s like, this video shows the solstice inside the passage tomb at around 1:00).
Newgrange is a staggering reminder that for as long as we have lived, we have been waiting for the light.
Good Friday is the rare opportunity for the believer to step inside the story of the crucifixion: to try to live it as the disciples, as Mary, might have experienced it. I cannot imagine a darker time.
For the disciples, the death of Christ was so much more than a single death—even the death of a deeply beloved friend. It was the death of dreams of freedom from oppression, of victory over Rome. The death of dreams about God’s promised future as they understood it. The death of whatever personal ambitions they might have had within that context.
The memory of the Passover must have tasted like sawdust in the mouth.
When I was young, I used to believe that the worst thing a believer could do was to stop believing in God. I found a sort of confidence in that, because I had never wavered in my understanding that Jesus existed, that God was real. I felt that made me safe. Believing in God, I thought, secured you from a certain sort of despair.
What I did not know then that I know now is this: the blackest despair comes from believing God is real and present and that everything has died and been lost, anyway. That God does not care, or is not paying attention, or is not who you imagined Him to be. That something in the cosmic fabric of everything has gone horribly, horribly wrong.
This is always, always the test.
It was the test for Job, his life dismantled piece by piece in front of His eyes. It was the test for Joseph, abandoned in the cistern and sold into slavery. It was the test for David, fleeing for his life from a mad king. It was the test for Elijah when he collapsed because the journey was too much. It was the test for the disciples when the body of the Messiah was buried. It is our test, too.
The greatest weapon of the darkness is despair.
To despair is to look around your life and find yourself unable to see any evidence of God’s promises or affections. To wander through the ruins of your hopes and find yourself unable to see how any of it will ever be pieced back together. To wonder if somehow, along the way, you got it wrong: misread those promises, misunderstood who God was,
There will come a time when the only proof of God’s love and goodness that you can cling to will be what God has said to you and promised to you about Himself. The test is always this: will you believe it, standing in valley of the shadow of death? Will you believe it, when all else has been stripped away? Will you believe it, even if…?
In County Meath, Ireland, the structure of an entire passage tomb revolves around a central truth: the light will come. The light will come. If we wait long enough, we in the darkness, the light will come.
The disciples did not know the light would return. When they understood that it had, that revelation transformed them forever.
On Good Friday, the world stands still. There is so much sorrow. All those hopes and dreams suspended, waiting. A dead Savior. Scattered disciples. A grieving mother. Memories of miracles that must have pierced like swords. The same ache as exile, the despair that everything precious has been lost forever.
We know the story. But we remember those who lived the story, who lived through to Sunday, so that we can face our own despair and know the light will always come back. That the darkness will not always be dark. That whatever ruins we stand are not the fullness of our story.
Our task is simply this, in the nighttime:
To stand where we are.
To trust God is who He has promised He is.
Samaritan's Song 