Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven so that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be felt.”

Exodus 10:21

In the Book of Exodus, the ninth plague was darkness to cover the face of the land. God was angry. He was fed up with the Egyptians' sin. 

Like Moses, we are living in dark times indeed. I’m pretty sure that after the last year we know how the people felt. Sickness surrounds us. Death has touched everyone we know in one way or another. Countries are dealing with climate woes and famine threatens already fragile food supplies in parts of the world. Wars still rage and people are enslaved.

Is this all a punishment from God? Certainly not. The God I know and worship just does not work that way. All these terrible events were wrought by human hand. Greed and lies, envy and anger have all contributed to getting us to the point where our world itself is rising up against us to say “enough.”

Unlike the Pharaoh of Exodus, we know through Jesus that no matter how dark things appear, God hears our cries and is there to comfort and defend us.

Can we change the direction of our world? Of course we can. With a prayer in our hearts and our eyes turned to Jesus we can become the people God wants us to be. We can heal our world and each other. We can become a people of love for our God and our fellow man.

Pharaoh feared the darkness. We need not fear. We have the light of the world. We have Jesus.

Help us to go forth Lord out of the darkness of our sinful past and once again walk into the future in the light of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Photo by Alex Conchillos from Pexels