It’s only December but I’ve already sung a fair few carols and started Advent with a bang.

On Sunday evening we had an outstanding Advent carol service by candlelight. The cathedral is amazing in darkness and that may sound strange but it is difficult to explain. I read from Exodus chapter 20 and noticed these words for the first time:

The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.

God in the thick darkness was a bit of a revelation to me. God is light and particularly at Advent with the lighting of candles we talk of Christ as light of the world. Yet Moses met with God in the thick darkness.

As we turned the lights off in the cathedral on Sunday night I could not say the darkness was thick but it was clear that God was there in the darkness with us.

It’s easy to use darkness as negative and prefer the imagery of light because it may be easier to explain. But … God is also in the darkness, he was in the darkness with Moses and is in the darkness with us.

This links with today’s thought in Beginnings and Endings where we are reminded that the Christmas story started at the beginning of creation, not with the baby in a manger, or even with the angelic visit of to Mary.

In the beginning there was a formless void and darkness. The darkness was not absent of God, God was there, right in the middle of the darkness.

This Advent as I search for God and await the return of Christ, I must remember to seek him in the places of darkness as well as in the places of light. God in the darkness throws uop new images for me, and will inevitably bring fresh knowledge of what it means to find God in the darkness.