The power of darkness is an empty threat.
The Christian faith points us to and highlights the fact that we serve a God who is light. That means, if we are willing to accept it, that there is nothing this world can throw at us that either surprises God or diminishes his glory.
In spite of all the uncertainty the current state of affairs wants to heap on us, God is calling us to remember who he is. He has not changed. There is nothing that can happen in this world that can undo what God has done; that can unravel what God has planned and executed. God is unwavering and God is unimpressed with the darkness.
The reason the darkness feels so overwhelming is that we have a tendency to focus on what reminds us of those things that are not God. We know grace is not what we deserve. We know that God’s mercy feels wasted on us. We know this. Why? Because we know ourselves. The darkness is the warm blanket of accusation reminding us how bad we are.
The problem is, the real tragedy is that we have grown so used to the darkness, we don’t trust the light. We feel that if we approach it, too much will be exposed. Too much discovered. Too much revealed. And then, at our most vulnerable we will wonder how anyone, especially God, could accept us.
It is into this conundrum that God sends his son. Right smack dab into the middle of this mess we call the human experience, Jesus steps in and manifests how light dispels the darkness. How a God who is light and love can embrace what should be rejected.
The Gospel–the story to which Easter is the final climactic peak–is proof positive that light can truly vanquish darkness. That darkness a fear-inducing reality is a toothless, venomless foe.