Acts 9:8–9

Stop.

Take a deep breath. Close your eyes and imagine sitting in darkness. How does it make you feel?

Listen.

Acts 9:8–9 (NRSV)

8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Reflect.

In her book Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor says,

“I always wondered why it took "three days" for significant things to happen in the Bible--Jonah spent three days in the belly of the whale, Jesus spent three days in the tomb, Paul spent three days blind in Damascus--and now I know. From earliest times, people learned that was how long they had to wait in the dark before the sliver of the new moon appeared in the sky. For three days every month they practiced resurrection.”

I fact-checked this and discovered that the moon is dark between 1.5-3.5 days during every lunar cycle. The moon goes completely dark for three days. In the ancient world they believed the moon was a divine being, so they witnessed the death, disappearance, and rebirth of the divine on a regular basis.

Darkness and Light. Life, Death, New Life. These are the cycles of creation. God is not absent in the darkness, but is present in a special way, inviting us to stillness and waiting.

What are you waiting for right now?

Pray.

God of creation, comfort us in the dark times. May we feel your embrace, as still and silent as it may seem.

Carry On.

Sometimes we cannot move because we are in the darkness. The thing to do is to wait patiently for dawn. Today, may you have hope of new light, no matter how dark it feels right now.