Singing in the dark has been a central and distinctive habit of the Christian life from the beginning.  People of other faith traditions sing for sure, but Christians have the habit of singing loud and long and joyfully, triumphantly no matter the circumstances.  We sing our songs all the more in those moments when life and even all the world seem to grow dark.

Jesus undoubtedly sang with his disciples during their last meal together as the darkness of his betrayal and death crept closer.

In the darkness of the cross Jesus sang the victory song of the righteous (Psalm 22) with his final breath.

After being beaten and thrown in prison, Paul and Silas filled the darkness with songs of praise

Early Christians sang at the rising of the sun and at the dying of the light.  They sang in hiding and in hardship and they sang of the love and victory of God even while being executed.  Even our Christ-Mass is scheduled so that some of our most joyful songs are sung during the darkest part of the year.

We have always been a people who sing in the dark.

Through all the plagues, wars, famines and hardships of our history, we have sung our songs.

We sang under the oppression of the Islamic kingdoms, we sang of God’s victory in the shadow of Nazi Germany, we sang in the darkness of Japanese prison camps, we sang in the darkness of the Communist torture chambers and the Soviet Gulags.  We sang songs of praise, hope, and deliverance in the fields of slavery and we sang them on Jim Crow’s streets.

Today Christians sing in the outlawed churches in China and Laos, in secret places in the Islamic world, and in the labor camps of North Korea.

At any given moment Christians somewhere are singing in refugee camps, in hospital rooms, at the bedsides of sick children, and even at grave sides.

We are a people who are marked by singing in the dark.

Sometimes the singing changes the world around us. It always changes us.  The darkness – moments of despair and suffering and loss – is where we really learn to sing, where we really learn about the power of faith, hope, love, and perseverance.

Our songs remind us that no matter how great the darkness, our God is greater still.

So, sing when the world seems dark, sing when all hope seems lost, sing when life has drained the energy from your bones, sing at the dying of the day, sing at the dying of the light, sing when all that is wrong seems so strong, sing into the dark, and let those songs remind you whose you are.