By Christine, CBF field personnel
Living in the Middle East, the first call to prayer of the Muslim day echoes from the distance while the world still sleeps. Long before sunrise, the adhan calls the faithful to prayer. In pitch black, pure darkness, an invitation to pray.
Christians too, who pray the daily Liturgy of the Hours, begin their prayers before sunrise. Perhaps this is what hope looks like, showing up to prayer when we can’t see the light. But trusting somehow that it’s there anyway. A stubborn belief that the light has overcome the darkness, even when we can’t see it, perhaps especially when we can’t see it. We show up to prayer anyway because we trust that God is faithful. We trust that God is at work in ways we cannot see or imagine.
And when we show up for prayer in the darkness of the night, we’re awake and ready to watch as the day dawns. To see the first glimmers of light, of hope on the horizon, a reminder that as surely as the sun rises, God will appear. That God joins us in the living of our days.
But if we don’t show up for prayer in the darkness, we miss the deep relief, the remembering of a promise, one we hoped for but sometimes aren’t sure we can really believe.
And then, we get to see the light rising. As we watch the darkness fading away into the pinks and oranges of a new day, a new beginning, an invitation to new life, we remember that the light really has overcome the darkness.
May we live like we believe it.
Amen.