Follow me into the Dark
By Bethany Kaldas
‘Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, “This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.”’
Luke 7:39
A
friend, when she was going through a truly difficult time, once said that she
thought our friendship was going to harm me. She said she didn’t want to drag
me into the darkness with her.
Perhaps
there was a little truth to this. Without going into the finer details, I’ll
admit I wasn’t unshaken by her struggle. It seems, in a way, darkness is
contagious. Hang around someone who’s in its thrall and it will soon ensnare
you too.
What’s
the advice we give our children (or the people we serve)? Choose your friends
wisely. Don’t enter into bad crowds. If you can see that someone else is
sinning, don’t get too close, or else they might take you with them. Toxic
people breed toxicity and sin begets further sin.
That
is, perhaps, sound advice to most children. Sound advice generally, to those of
us who know that, honestly, we would only encourage poor behaviour, or that a
dark personality is going to weaken our spirit beyond resistance. Being around
persistent negativity can be genuinely damaging to our health, and there are a
lot of circumstances where, truly, the best course of action for all involved
is to step away from the situation. And there are some of us for whom this will
simply be too much for us to handle, no matter how great or small the shadows we
face.
But…that’s
not all of us. We know that. And ideally, it shouldn’t be us.
‘But many of us do not follow half of this commandment. They rejoice with those who rejoice, but it is hard for them to weep with those who weep. Joy is what attracts them, sadly, not pain, and if they join others in their distress, they quickly get bored and leave, because joining others in pain causes us pain too, that is why they run away from it, while it is beneficial to them.’
Pope Shenouda III, Holy Week Contemplations
In its kindest, sincerest form, this sort of avoidance is spiritual self-preservation—often justified, if we truly know ourselves to be too weak to handle the company of the broken. But in many instances, this comes from a less well-meaning place. Sometimes—although we might not admit it—this comes from a place of social self-preservation. Nobody wants to be friends with a ‘bad egg’ or with someone who’s always got dark clouds over their head. Being dragged into the darkness doesn’t make getting on in a community any easier.
It
happens in schools, universities, workplaces, social clubs—and, if we dare to
look for more than a second, churches. Save for the especially lucky or
especially oblivious of us, we’ve all seen this person. We’ve probably all been
this person at least once in our lives. Haven’t you ever had a moment where it
felt like the world inside your head was crashing down on you? Like all your
mistakes were tearing you apart, like your heart would never be free of your
sorrows…and found yourself utterly, despairingly alone? Haven’t you ever found
yourself sitting in the dark, knowing full well that you are in the valley of
the shadow of death, and yet still wishing someone—anyone—had been brave enough
to keep you company?
‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.’
Psalm 23:4
Christ is the perfect example of someone who walks into the darkness, after those who have been captured by it.
We say
that He rescued His children from death by entering into death itself—He was
happy to be deemed a criminal for the sake of reaching those who were captives
of the darkness. But even before then, who was Jesus spending most of His time
with?
‘Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”’
Matthew 9:10-11
It wasn’t the rich, those of great reputation, it wasn’t even the ‘good’ people, the positive influences in society. Christ specifically, purposefully, sought out the people nobody else dared to go near (sometimes literally). Adulterers who were condemned by society, tax collectors who were abandoned by their community, lepers and the deformed and unpleasant who had been rejected by everyone, even their own families. These were the kinds of people Christ came for. These were the people Jesus followed into the dark.
‘If you do not carry people’s sins, then carry their suffering. Carry people’s suffering as Christ carried it, who told them, ‘Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ (Matthew 11:28).’
Pope Shenouda III, Holy Week Contemplations
That might seem drastic to us, we might feel too weak for that. Maybe that’s true—you personally might not be able to go that deep into the shadows. That’s something only you can know. But there are some dark spaces that I, with a fair amount of confidence, can say that most of us are able to enter into…we simply don’t.
‘I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.’
C. S. Lewis
Depression, anxiety, poverty, grief, loneliness—you know at least one person who has been captured by some form of darkness. You know someone on whom the sun seems to have set and they sit, alone, in a night without stars, without light.
It’s
uncomfortable. It’s scary. We don’t like hanging around these people—we can
feel the dark on them, the shadows reek like death. And we’re scared they’ll
infect us. Darkness is contagious, after all.
But it
is also self-perpetuating, and left alone, it grows and grows, like a parasite
feeding on the life of a broken heart. The more the darkness grows, the fewer
people dare draw near, the worse it gets.
It
sounds…almost unstoppable, like that. Something that eats and eats and gets
bigger and bigger until there is nothing left of that soul but a husk. What
hope do we have? Darkness looks impossible to beat when you’re in it. It looks
impossible to defeat when you’re alone. But the thing about darkness is that—no
matter how much of it there is—it only takes a little bit of light to dispel.
Even just one other soul is enough to chase shadows away.
‘Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. … Compassionmeans full immersion in the condition of being human.’
Henri Nouwen, You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living
But what then, you may ask? So, I can follow you into the dark, but I am no healer. I can forgive no sins, I can redeem no souls, I can cast no demons from your heart. I am not Christ. Who am I to think I could help you?
It may
be true—maybe you can’t heal them. You probably can’t solve all their
problems—or any of them. Maybe you can do nothing for them. But you can be
there. Christ’s ministry was not only in healing illnesses and forgiving
sins—part of it was simply showing people that there was still hope, that they
were still loved, that they were worth following into the dark.
‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.’ These men without possessions or power, these strangers on Earth, these sinners, these followers of Jesus, have in their life with him renounced their own dignity, for they are merciful. As if their own needs and their own distress were not enough, they take upon themselves the distress and humiliation of others. They have an irresistible love for the down-trodden, the sick, the wretched, the wronged, the outcast and all who are tortured with anxiety. They go out and seek all who are enmeshed in the toils of sin and guilt. No distress is too great, no sin too appalling for their pity. If any man falls into disgrace, the merciful will sacrifice their own honour to shield him, and take his shame upon themselves.’
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
We can’t do much. We’re only human—and deep inside, we’re all quite broken ourselves. We’re all fighting our own shadows. But we don’t have to do it alone. He never let us do it alone. He’s been in every battle you’ve ever fought, He’s followed you into the deepest and darkest valleys. You may not have seen Him, but He was there, every time.
‘If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.’
Psalm 139:8
It’s uncomfortable, it will probably hurt, and at times, it may not seem like your presence does very much. But one light is enough to stave off the shadows, even just a bit. And there are times where that’s all someone may need. So don’t let them fight the dark alone. Remember that He’ll be by your side there, too.
‘Do not rejoice over me, my enemy;
When I fall, I will arise;
When I sit in darkness,
The Lord will be a light to me.’
Micah 7:8
