121 The Hour of the Power of Darkness

Life can get dark, and darkness can create
doubt and fear in our lives. What can we do
when life gets hard and there doesn't seem to
be any way out of the difficulties we face?
One woman told about her favorite spot at the
zoo. It was an exhibit called the House of Night.
It was a place where you could see creatures of
the night that would crawl and fly about, but
because it held creatures of the night… it was
nearly totally dark.

She said that one very bright day, she stepped
into the exhibit and (of course) was instantly
plunged into total darkness. Almost immediately
(she said) “a small hand grabbed mine.”
Smiling, she asked “And who do you belong
to?”
A little boy, in a very quiet voice said: “I’m
yours… till the lights come on.”
(Connie Lavoie, R.Digest 3/09 p. 165)

There are a lot of people who have trouble with
the dark.
Children especially are notorious for that kind of
fear, but adults can struggle with it as well.

A woman went thru a very difficult divorce and
she ended up living in an upstairs apartment in
the middle of town.
She was very lonely and for the first 6 months
she had difficulty sleeping because she was
afraid of the dark.
Even months afterward, the only way she could
get to sleep was if she had a night light on.

People OFTEN fear the dark.
The dark is a filled with the “unknown”, and with
anxiety and uncertainty.
Scientists have even found that if a person
spends too much time in the dark they can
suffer with a condition called SAD syndrome.

That’s an appropriate acronym because those
who suffer from it often become moody and
depressed.
SAD is an acronym for “seasonal affective
disorder” because it often happens in winter.
(http://www.webmd.com/depression/features/seasonal-
affective-disorder)

Now in our text this morning, Jesus is
addressing those who’ve come to arrest Him:
NIV Every day I was with you in the
temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on
me. But this is your hour—when darkness
reigns.”

There is a power in darkness.
The power of uncertainty, and anxiety and fear.
During those times of darkness we may be
trapped in something we can’t control.
Today’s text is a case study in the power of
darkness and the feeling of helplessness it can
bring. Even Jesus is caught up in it.

ESV And he withdrew from them
about a stone's throw, and knelt down and
prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing,
remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my
will, but yours, be done.” And there appeared
to him an angel from heaven, strengthening
him. And being in agony he prayed more
earnestly; and his sweat became like great
drops of blood falling down to the ground.

In just a few hours,
• Jesus is going to be put on trial … not once,
not twice, but 6 different times.
• Pilate’s going to order Him to be taken away
and beaten by Roman soldiers.
• Then Jesus will be forced to carry a heavy
cross through the city and all the way up the
hill to the crucifixion site, the place of the
Skull, Golgotha.

• Then He’ll be nailed to that cross, and the
cross will be lifted up and dropped into
position.
• And Jesus will hang by those nails for 6 long
hours.
• And ultimately… He’ll die there.

It’s little wonder Jesus was in anguish as He
prayed.
It’s little wonder Jesus prayed “If there is ANY
WAY for this cup to be taken from me…let’s do
it!”
It’s little wonder that when He prayed, His sweat
was like great drops of blood.

There’s a relatively rare medical condition where
people literally “sweat” blood
It’s called “hematohidrosis.” Your sweat glands
are surrounded by numerous blood vessels,
and when a person undergoes intense stress
those blood vessels dilate to the point of
rupturing. Then blood goes into the sweat
glands and comes out as droplets of blood
mixed with sweat.
(http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t018.html)

Now, my point is this:
Jesus was facing a time of crisis.
An hour of darkness.
And it’s a situation that EVEN He – the Son of
God - cannot change.
It is a situation that has affected not just Him,
but also those closest to Him.

How He faced this crisis, and how He deals with
the darkness He couldn’t change tells us a lot
about how we can deal with our own personal
times of darkness.
As I studied this passage, I found 3 basic
principles for how we can face situations we
don’t seem to be able to stop or change.

The first principle is found in;
NIV On reaching the place, he said to
them, “Pray that you will not fall into
temptation.”
NIV “Why are you sleeping?” he
asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will
not fall into temptation.”

This caught me a little by surprise.
Who did Jesus say His disciples should pray
for?
Not for HIM… but for themselves.
“Pray that YOU will not fall enter into
temptation.”
(emphasis mine)

Now, what possible temptation could they be
facing?
The temptation they faced was this:
The temptation to feel God had abandoned
them.

Have you ever seen what a child does when
they’re in bed and they become afraid of the
dark?
What do they do?
That’s right.
They go get in bed with Mom and Dad.
They seek out an adult.
That’s what that little boy at the zoo did.

As long as the child is with an adult (mom, dad,
police, etc.) they’re not afraid.
And that’s because the adult represents power
and protection that even the dark can’t
overcome.
But as we get older (and we face a time of
darkness) we find that WE are the adults in the
room. And it doesn’t always seem quite right to
find someone and slip our hand into theirs for
comfort.

A man named Paul Faulkner told of a woman
who came to him for counseling.
She told him that nothing was working in her
life.
Her daughter had been killed, her husband was
unfaithful, and now she thought she was about
to lose her job.
In the course of the counseling session,
Faulkner asked her:
"When the world crashes in on you,
to whom do you go?"

She paused a long time before saying, "I guess I
just go to myself."
She told him that the one word that most
described her was "alone."
You see, that’s the temptation.
The temptation to go through it alone.
As adults we tend to forget that there is
someone out there who is bigger than we are…
someone bigger than the darkness we face.

NIV Let your gentleness be
evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be
anxious about anything, but in every situation,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
present your requests to God. And the peace
of God, which transcends all understanding, will
guard your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus.

Don’t be ANXIOUS about anything.
Why not?
Why shouldn’t I get anxious???
Because the Lord is near.
He’s the big guy in the room.
He’s the one who wants to hold your hand when
you become afraid.

And He’s promised to never leave you or
forsake you.
But if I forget that He is near the power of
darkness can overwhelm me.
And so I need to reach out and take hold of His
hand, especially when life gets dark.
But how?
How do I take hold of God’s hand?
That leads me to the 2nd principle of this text:

When faced with a situation you can’t handle,
you take hold of God’s hand through prayer.
You see prayer is faith in action.
Prayer is the act of looking to the God who
answers prayer.
Prayer is the declaration that God has the
POWER to help me walk thru the darkness.

Now notice, Jesus’ prayer didn’t change the
outcome.
Here is the Son of God in prayer, not once, not
twice but 3 times asking that this cup be taken
away.
* That he could be excused the sufferings of
death,
* delivered from the curse of the law,
* and shielded from the wrath of God that He
would bear on the cross because He carried
in His person all the sins of all mankind.

The pain that Jesus was about to endure was
not just the physical torture of the Cross but
also the mental and spiritual torture that He
would endure because He was going to the
cross as our substitute.
On the cross, Jesus bore OUR punishment of
sin.
The horror of what Jesus was about to go thru
was more than anyone would want to endure.

And so Jesus prayed.
But His prayer didn’t change the outcome.
He still endured the trials, the beatings, the nails
and ultimately the wrath of God upon the sin of
all mankind.
So, why pray?
Why would Jesus bother?
Because prayer was taking hold of His Father’s
hand. It was the point at which the darkness
was so intense that only the comfort of prayer
was going to do anything for Him.

One man noted: If we had witnessed His
struggle that night, we might have said, “If He is
so broken up when all He is doing is praying,
what will He do when He faces real crisis?
Why can't He approach this ordeal with the calm
confidence of His 3 sleeping friends?”
Yet when the test came, Jesus walked to the
cross with courage, and His 3 friends fell apart
and ran away.

A woman was facing a terrible situation and her
friend was trying to console her. The friend said
“I guess suffering colors our lives.”
To which the woman replied: “Yes. But I get to
choose which color.”
In prayer we may be overcome with our
personal darkness, but praying gives us the
power to choose which color the darkness
becomes for us. It allows us to choose which
shade of blackness we face.

In His praying, Jesus chose the color of His
suffering.
Through His praying He sought His Father’s
comfort and strength.
And Jesus received that comfort and strength
through the angel.
The angel didn’t rescue Jesus from His fate,
the angel rescued Him from His suffering.
The angel came to give Jesus peace.

Some might say that kind of prayer is a pipe
dream.
They say, “If the world gets dark around me,
I want something real and tangible.
I want something that makes sense.
How could you possibly think that just praying
changes anything?”

The overhead lights are turned off, the window
shades are closed, the only light we have is a
little sunlight bleeding through the window
shades & the projector light & I’m turning it
off…Our suffering could be compared to this
darkness you sense now.
How am I going to turn those lights back on?
What if I didn’t know where the light switch is?

Or what if I couldn’t get to it because I couldn’t
find my way in the dark, or there were obstacles
between me and the switch?
How could I turn those lights back on?
I could ask Jim to grope his way back & flip the
light switch on or ask those close to a window
to draw the shades up.
You could ask me to see if I can find the button
to turn the projector back on?

Why did the lights come back on?
Because I asked.
That’s what promises us:
NIV Let your gentleness be
evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be
anxious about anything, but in every situation,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
present your requests to God. And the peace
of God, which transcends all understanding, will
guard your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus.

When you and I face dark times we need to
make our requests known to God.
And because we ask, God says He will turn on
the lights in our darkness.
Now, it may not make any sense.
It may surpass all understanding.
But when we make our requests known to God
He promises to turn on the lights…
to give us His peace.

And so the first principle of dealing with the
dark times in life is to remember that God is
nearby. He’ll never leave you nor forsake you.
He’s the big guy in the room.
The 2nd principle is take hold of His hand by
praying.
And the 3rd principle is believing that God has
the power to help me walk thru the darkness.

NIV He withdrew about a stone’s
throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed,
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from
me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
These are the only words we read in Scripture of
the prayer Jesus prayed in Gethsemane
“not my will, but yours be done.”
This a prayer of submission to the Father’s will.

Jesus is saying “I don’t like this plan. I don’t
REALLY want to do this plan, but no matter what
happens I will stick with the plan...
because I trust you to work the plan.”
You see, when we follow God, we have to
believe that He HAS A PLAN.
That plan may be painful, it may be hard to
understand, it may even be scary. But there is a
plan and it has a reason behind it.

Even when the darkness we’re surrounded by
isn’t part of His plan,
He can make it part of His plan.
One of the most disturbing things I hear people
say to folks who are going through difficult
times is “it happened for a reason,” as if God
caused the problems or the loss or the betrayal
they’ve had to endure.

I think many of the problems we experience in
our lives are not the result of God’s plan, but of
our own foolish choices. Or the result of the
mean-spirited or thoughtless actions of others.
But God says it doesn’t matter.
Whether something has happened in our lives
that is part of His plan or not… if we trust Him,
He’ll MAKE that problem part of His plan.

NIV And we know that in all things
God works for the good of those who love him,
who have been called according to his purpose.
Do you love God?
Have you been called according to His
purpose?
Well, God is telling you that ALL THINGS will
work together for good in your life.

Note that it’s not saying “all things are good”
Nor, “All things are of God”
BUT it is saying it doesn’t make any difference.
God will MAKE all things will work together for
good in your life.
Because God has a plan.
And because of that, because we believe God
has a plan, prayer gives us the power to walk
through our dark times with confidence.

After His prayer, a group of soldiers come to
arrest Jesus. The man who would betray Him
with a kiss leads this band of men.
And what does Jesus do?
He speaks kindly to Judas.
NIV but Jesus asked him, “Judas,
are you betraying Son of man with a kiss?”

He gently rebukes the soldiers,
NIV “Am I leading a rebellion, that
you have come with swords and clubs?
And when Peter cuts off the ear of one of them
Jesus touches the man’s ear and heals him.

AND THEN, Jesus allows Himself to be taken
away to suffer and die at the hands of evil men.
How could Jesus do that?
How could Jesus so confidently walk to His
torture and death?
Because He trusted His Father to carry Him thru
the darkness.
He knew He had to go through this time of
darkness to suffer, to die, and be buried.
He had to go through ALL of that so He could
rise from the dead and conquer the grave.

One teacher explained this is often how God
does things in our lives.
He called it “The Death of a Vision.”
He explained that almost all of the great men
and women in Scripture received a vision of
what God could do in their lives.
This was followed by the “death” of that vision
and then by the resurrection of their dreams.

You see it over and over again throughout
Scripture.
1. Abraham was given a vision – he will have a
son.
But then his vision died: Abraham is asked by
God to sacrifice his son on Mt. Moriah.
Then God supplies a ram for the sacrifice and
Abraham literally receives his son back from the
dead.

2. Joseph was given a vision – he would be a
great man
But then his vision died: brothers sell him into
slavery and he ends up being unjustly accused
and thrown into prison.
Then God literally raises Joseph from the dead -
rescuing him from prison to be the 2nd most
important man in Egypt.

3. Moses had a vision that he would be the
savior of Israel and rescue them from slavery.
But then his vision dies: he ends up running for
his life and spending 40 years in the wilderness.
Then God literally brings him back from the
dead to face Pharaoh and free Israel.

You see it again, and again, and again
throughout Scripture.
Men filled with vision, being overcome by the
darkness of failure, but then God worked all
things together for good in their lives just like
He can do for us.
This is so important that God made this
message part of our salvation:

NIV What shall we say, then? Shall
we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2
By no means! WE are those who HAVE DIED to
sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t
you know that all of us who were baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? WE
WERE therefore BURIED WITH HIM through
baptism into death in order that, just as Christ
was raised from the dead through the glory of
the Father, we too may live a new life.

For if we have been united with him in a death
like his, WE WILL certainly also BE UNITED
WITH HIM IN A RESURRECTION like his.
(emphasis mine)

We serve a God of hope, and of light, and of
resurrection.
We have a gift from God that this world cannot
understand and cannot equal.
We have the ability to walk through the
darkness of this world with confidence because
Jesus is the light of our lives.
But you can’t have that confidence and light
until you first belong to Jesus.

121 The Hour of the Power of Darkness

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