Lenten Devotional...February 23

“We look for light, but all is darkness;

for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows.”

Isaiah 49:9b

I remember my first trip to New York City, some 30+ years ago. After emerging from Union Station on a bright, sunny day, I believe I only saw the sun three more times that day. Oh, it was a beautiful day…crisp March winds…not a cloud in the sky. The three times I remember seeing the sun were when we stepped onto the observation deck at the Empire State Building, looking through the glass in the crown of the Statue of Liberty, and looking out across the city from the 110th floor of the World Trade Center. Much of that beautiful day was spent walking the streets, engulfed by the surrounding buildings that hid the sun and cast long shadows across our steps.

The prophet Isaiah speaks of looking for light, yet finds himself walking in deep shadows. Scholars believe this text reflects the sinful failures of a people in exile. The prophet speaks in Isaiah 49:2, “your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you…” The shadow cast across this people was the shadow of sin…a shadow which marks every human being.

Eighteenth-century American poet, Henry David Thoreau, once wrote, “Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit.” Just as a shadow is cast by the body’s encounter with light, a shadow is cast as the sin of our lives is confronted by the glorious light of the Creator God. The sin that causes us to walk in shadows cannot overcome the brightness of God’s love and mercy. Speaking of the living Word that was with God from the beginning, the apostle John wrote, “In him was life, and that life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The sin of our lives condemns us to the shadows…the light of Christ exposes and overcomes that shadow of sin, drawing us to the brightness of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Jim Abernathy