Several days ago—before the sub-zero deep freeze enveloped our area!—my wife and I wanted to add a few miles to our annual hiking total.
At the beginning of the year, we signed up for the Hikers 365 Challenge with the goal of hiking 365 miles in 365 days. We began January 1, and since 2024 is a leap year, we have to complete the goal by December 30. To date, 23 miles down; 342 to go!
Anyway, our closest go-to hike is 3 minutes away—literally at the end of our street. We hop on the Rock River Trail and head east through Sinnissippi Park to the end of the trail at Hoover Park—a little under 4 miles, round trip.
We started at about 4:15 p.m., and in the first week of January, that’s close to dusk! The further we walked, the darker it got. To make matters worse, early winter, low-hanging clouds intensified the dreary atmosphere in the woods—like something out of a Hansel-&-Gretl-type story. Fortunately, most of the trail hugs the river bank, so one side of the path is relatively open.
About a third of the way to Hoover Park, I glanced over my shoulder to look out over the river, and in my peripheral vision, a faint light caught my attention. Just above the western horizon, the clouds parted, opening a wide slit in the sky. The sun had just settled below the break, and a golden-orange glow emerged.
We found ourselves walking a short way, stopping, turning, and delighting in the changing hues in the distance.
We were drawn to the light as steel to a magnet. Walk…turn…stop…gaze.
By the time we finally turned around at Hoover Park, it was difficult to make out anything in the nearby woods. I was sure I heard the soft footsteps of deer—we had seen a couple earlier—and the unmistakable scurry of a squirrel through dead leaves, but could see nothing.
Emerging from the wooded section of the trail, climbing the hill high above the Rock River, we could once again see the western horizon. The previous intensity of golden glow had faded to a pale yellow, and the darkness was about to have its way at day’s end.
Yet, for the last mile of our walk, I found myself repeatedly drawn to the light—scant though it was.
Being drawn to the light, it seems, is a universal human response.
Remember the Thomas Kincade phenomenon?
Kincade became quite famous in the 1990s for his unique paintings that featured focal points of light. “The painter of light,” he was called. Kincade galleries used to be found in shopping malls all over the US. Like many shoppers, we would usually stop in and admire the artwork strategically mounted on the wall so as to highlight the light. Drawn to the light, we were. Tragically, Kincade’s light went out a few years ago.
At some point in the recent Christmas season, did you take a “light drive”? Used to be a traditional event in our home when the kids were younger, and we’ve done it most years even after they left the nest. Yet not formally scheduled, I’m sure, like me, as you drive down a residential street, you notice the various light displays—you’re automatically drawn to them, both the subtle minimalist displays as well as the extravagant!
And just how powerful is a single candle burning softly, enshrouded by darkness.
Ever been on a cave tour? I can’t remember which, but we visited one where the guide leads into the belly of the earth, the path lit along the way to a large room in the cavern. For a few moments, he allows you to take in the stalactites and stalagmites brilliantly lit up with multicolored lights.
Then the lights go out! So thick is the darkness you can’t see your hand inches in front of your face, even after a minute or so passes, giving your eyes time to adjust. Pitch-black darkness.
And the guide strikes a single match, lighting a single candle. Everyone’s eyes are drawn to the light!
Isn’t it interesting to note that in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, that darkness was over the face of the deep. Yet His next creative act was to bring forth light—and light and darkness are forever separated.
It’s also significant to realize that ever since the precipitous, devastating Fall in Eden, darkness has once again enveloped the world—a spiritual darkness, leaving man groping, ever seeking the way to navigate life and hopefully land on some bright shore somewhere.
But God hasn’t left us totally in the dark! From Eden onward, He’s offered light to those who will be drawn to it.
In the old covenant era—that of tabernacle and temple—God expressed His presence symbolically in the Ark of the Covenant situated in the Most Holy Place, a cuboidal room separated by a thick curtain from the larger Holy Place. But the curtain was opened slightly on either side, and in the Holy Place, God instructed that a lampstand would burn perpetually, shedding light on the way to God’s presence.
All of that pointing to greater realities.
At Jesus’s birth, shepherds and magi were drawn to and by great light.
In preparing the way for Jesus’s public ministry, John the Baptist “came as a witness, to bear witness about the light [that is, Jesus], that all might believe through him.” [John 1:7]
And speaking of Jesus, He spoke of himself as “the light”:
As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
– John 9:5
How so? The apostle John explains:
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
– John 1:4-5
In other words, just as the lampstand in the old temple pointed the way to the presence of God—the way to true, eternal life—so Jesus is the way to light and life! “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” Jesus announced. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” [John 14:6]
Indeed. And later Jesus declared,
I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.
– John 12:46
Interestingly, when Jesus foretold His coming death, He said,
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.
– John 12:32
As a candle glowing in the darkness of a deep cavern, Jesus has been lifted up on the cross, drawing groping sinners to Himself.
But He also warns,
…The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.
– John 12:35-36
I trust that, in this dark and ever-darkening world, you have been drawn to the Light of the world—the only source of true, everlasting life!
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