The people that walked in darkness

My children have been watching the movie "The City of Ember" - it is the story of a city built deep underground to preserve a small portion of humanity for 500 years. The plans to leave after this time and return to the surface are lost over time until two young people decide to take the great and dangerous trek to find the land of light.

It is a winding path but without wanting to spoil it for anyone when they finally make it to the surface it is night time and they are heart broken. The viewer really knows the secret without thinking about it - it is night time which means dawn will come - their dream will bear fruit. But not understanding that there is light beyond the darkness and that darkness is part of the cycle means that the travelers have no framework in which to place their hope.

"The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light" has to be one of my top twenty Bible passages for sheer poetic punch. (Isa 9:2 and referenced in Matt 4:16) It came into the Gospel reading this morning  - a framework in which God's wandering people of Israel can place their hope - Jesus Christ.

I tend to see this verse both in terms of historical salvation - so the epic movie version was the historical account in the Gospels but also in terms of the rolling stream of life which we all find ourselves in. Light and darkness, day and night - and sometimes we can stumble around in the dark for quite some time before we remember, or discover that we are children of light.

 We have a great light but are also called to be a great light - to provide an understanding of hope for those who see no dawn of who are trapped in a strange human-made light. In the movie the lead character is coloring a picture of the world and gets to the sky - there is no blue sky in Ember, where everything is artificial light - but she believes in blue sky, which noone has seen for more than half a millenium and colors blue.

A great light reflects all our colors, all our varieties, we may have walked in darkness, we may even have sat in darkness but we are called to believe in the God's blue, and walk in the light.