"Yours is the day, yours also the night."
The psalmist who penned these words was writing from the ashes of the destroyed sanctuary. National calamity had befallen the nation. Everything had been torn down, profaned, and burned. Everyone was wondering if God had forgotten them, if the LORD had cast them off forever (verse 1).
It is into this time of desolation and grief that the psalmist's words defiantly speak: "Yours is the day, yours also the night."
It may be whistling in the dark; but it's more than that also. This is what true faith looks like.
Last night in a class at our church we finished watching the film "The Mission", staring Jeremy Irons and Robert DeNiro as two 18th century Jesuit priests serving a mission to the native peoples in South America. At the end of the film, the mission is attacked by colonial powers, all is destroyed, and the two Jesuits and most of the villagers are killed. It is a heavy and disturbing end. But then, just before the conclusion of the film a young village boy takes up and begins the cross of one of the fallen Jesuits. The final words into the film just before the credits are from the beginning of the Gospel of St John, "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it."
Heartache, loss, calamity and devastation cannot be avoided in this mission of living. The experience of the darkness a part of the journey -- half of the journey. And yet, the darkness too belongs to God. It too is tamed by God. In the end, it too will be swallowed up by God.
The light within us is most manifest in the darkness; the life we bear is most meaningful in the shadow of death. To God belongs the day, and also the night; and to God belongs the children of light even in the darkest of midnight hours.
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