THE DARK NIGHT OF GOD'S PRESENCE
November 11, 2001

TEXT: Job 19:23-27a Luke 20:27-38
In 1948 after the Jews came to Palestine and established the nation of Israel, one of the first things they did was to create in the new city of Jerusalem, a museum dedicated to the Holocaust called Yad Vashem. This is more than a museum. It's a memorial to the six million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis during the Second World War. The whole place is quietly understated, and the main part of the museum consists of newspaper reports and quotes and photographs from the Holocaust.

There's also a Hall of Remembrance, which simply has a black mosaic floor with the names of all 22 "killing" camps on it. It's made up of six million tiny mosaics, one for every Jew that died, and although the individual mosaics are very small, the floor covers a large area. One is impressed with how vast a number six million is. One also realizes how many concentration camps there were and how efficient human beings can be at killing one another. Buried beneath an eternal flame on the floor which burns continuously in memory of those murdered, lie human ashes taken from each one of those camps.

But perhaps the most moving memorial of all was the Children's Memorial. One and a half million children were killed in the Holocaust, and every single one of them is remembered daily by name. You file into a circular, darkened room, with just a handrail around the wall to guide you. The center of the room is made up of a large glass pillar, which has five candles inside it. But there are also numerous mirrors at different angles inside the pillar, so that the flames from the five candles are reflected about a million and a half times. As you look up or down or through the pillar, all you can see is flickering candle flames, like stars in the night sky. And at the same time, a continuous commentary reads out the details of the children who died - "Martin Goldstein, aged six years, Holland, Ruth Schenkel aged 13 years, Germany" - and so on. Few people emerge from the Children's Memorial with dry eyes.

For the Jewish people, it is in memory that the dead continue to live. As tragic and as poignant and as difficult as it may be, Yad Vashem is for the living—for two reasons. Not only are those who have perished sixty years ago kept alive in memory, but the horror of the Holocaust feeds the national soul of the Jew so that never again will they allow this happen. For Americans, the memory of September 11, 2001 will serve the same purpose. The national soul of our country has been so deeply scarred that history will not soon forget what has happened, nor will memory allow us to sink back into complacency. Whether we like it or not, we cannot ignore our global responsibilities, whether it is fighting terrorism or seeking to remove the causes that produce terrorists.

Unfortunately, we never seem to learn the lessons of the past. Today is Veterans’ Day, a day that we are to keep alive the sacrifices made by the men and women of our armed services who have fought and who have died to preserve the freedom and values which this nation represents. We remember, but we still seem doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Since humans first walked upright on the earth, there have been battles between individuals and tribes and nations. You walk the fields of Gettysburg and Culloden, and Meggido and you wonder whether we ever learn. Several years ago I visited the cemetery at Gallipoli, across the Dardanelles from where the Trojan War was fought. Here at Gallipoli, Australian and New Zealanders engaged the Turks during the First World War and suffered extraordinary losses because they were shelled by their own battleships. I was deeply moved by the words of Kemal Ataturk, the Turkish president, engraved on a monument in the cemetery:

"Those heroes that shed their blood And lost their lives You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country Therefore Rest In Peace "There is no difference between the Johnnies And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side Here in this country of ours "You the mothers Who sent your sons from far away countries Wipe away your tears Your sons are now lying in our bosom And are in peace After having lost their lives on this land they Become our sons as well"

In death there are no borders, no racial or cultural differences, but one God who holds all of life precious and claims the souls of all who would return to him.

In the dawn of Israel’s history when the earliest words were being put to parchment, the story of Job was recorded. Job was a man who had seen such great suffering that even his friends advised him to curse God and die. But Job was firm in his confidence that life would be better as long as he remained faithful to God and to the memory of God’s goodness.

In the dark night of the soul when all he could see was black despair and a bleak future, Job tried to hold fast to his faith and preserve his expression of confidence:

O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another, and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God.

Faith is the ability to maintain a sense of God’s presence even when one is experiencing God’s absence. It is knowing that God stands in the shadows as we grope our way through the dark. It is realizing that our Redeemer lives, and that he waits for us on the last day to receive us at the finish line of the race of life.

However, you should not wait until the end of life to catch your first glimpse of God. People misunderstand the nature of mysticism and believe the mystic is a person who is lost in a mist and winds up in schism. The reality is that the mystic seeks to know the nature of God so that he might wake up to life and explore the meaning of what is happening to him, so he can deal with realities of war and terrorism, experience love and compassion, and become immersed in life, both in its joys and its sorrows.

In his autobiography, Report to Greco, Nikos Kazantzakis tells how as a young man he went to visit a then-famous monk. He describes this encounter:

Working up courage, I entered the cave and proceeded toward the voice. The ascetic was curled up on the ground. He had raised his head, and I was able in the half-light to make out his face as it gleamed in the depths of unutterable beatitude . . .

I did not know what to say, where to begin . . . Finally I gathered up courage.

“Do you still wrestle with the devil, Father Makarios?” I asked him.

“Not any longer, my child. I have grown old now, and he has grown old with me. He doesn't have the strength . . . I wrestle with God.”

“With God!” I exclaimed in astonishment. “And you hope to win?”

“I hope to lose, my child. My bones remain with me still, and they continue to resist.”

“Yours is a hard life, Father. I too want to be saved. Is there no other way?”

“A more agreeable way?” asked the ascetic, smiling compassionately.

“More human, Father.”

“One, only one.” “What is it?”

“Ascent. To climb a series of steps. From the full stomach to hunger, from the slaked throat to thirst, from joy to suffering. God sits at the summit of hunger, thirst, and suffering; the devil sits at the summit of a comfortable life. Choose.”

“I am still young. The world is nice. I have time to choose.”

Reaching out with the five bones of his hand, the ascetic touched my knee and pushed me.

“Wake up, my child. Wake up before death wakes you up.”

We learn more from our suffering and what we strive for than from the contentment of what we possess. I asked our Confirmation Class that if their deepest wish could be fulfilled, what would be. One-fourth named a material object or that which would provide wealth; one-fourth spoke of a human relationship; one-fourth named world peace and the absence of fear; and one-fourth named happiness. They were good intelligent, responses, which you expect from our kids, and in some ways their answers were much wiser than that of adults. But it takes a lot of living and suffering to learn the truth of Jesus’ words, “Seek first the realm of God and you will have all that you desire.” When one has found God, nothing else will seem that important.

Today is a day of remembering. We do need to remember the battles fought years ago and the lives lost in global struggles against tyranny, like the old soldiers at the conclusion of each episode of the series Band of Brothers, who through their tears spoke of death and glory and camaraderie. We need to remember history and the events of our times because they make us who we are and shape our values and define what is precious to us. And we need to remember our faith and the teachings of Jesus that puts our human existence into its proper perspective.

Let us befriend the dark, and in the shadows of our lives find the God who dwells there waiting to guide us into the dawn of a new day.

For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after I have passed through the waters, then I shall see the God who has been with me throughout my life’s journey.