The Brightest Light in the Darkest Night

As we prepare to celebrate Resurrection Sunday, I think it is good for us to remember the extreme darkness of the days leading up to that eternity-changing event.  The disciples had endured a long and harrowing night.  It had begun with Christ offering them words of comfort and inviting them to enter into a new covenant with Him, a new testament in His blood.  From the upper room they hurried to Gethsemene where they heard Him cry out to His Father in those intense moments when the plan of redemption hung in the balance.  Their apprehension turned to fear for their lives as they saw Judas and his cohorts approaching.  Suddenly the hopes and aspirations that they had allowed to grow in their hearts over the last three years seemed to be dashed on the rocks as Christ was taken by the mob and led to the house of the high priest to be judged.  Most ran away in fear, but Peter's curiosity led him to warm himself by the devil's fire and when interrogated, he denied that he even knew this gentle man with whom he had walked upon the water.  As the rooster crowed and Peter looked up into the eyes of the one he had betrayed, the night closed in around him and got that much darker.  The depravity of man's nature and the basest passions that Satan could arouse in the Jews and the Romans led to a night filled with torture and mockery and as crucifixion day dawned it was clear to all concerned that any hope for deliverance had long since slipped away.  As the disciples witnessed their Messiah suffering and dying, the overriding feeling must have been one of deep confusion and despair.  Had it all been a lie? Could this really be happening?  They had convinced themselves that  He was the Promised One, but these events didn't seem to fit.  They flew in the face of the promise of hope and power and deliverance from oppression.  The blood, the spit, the mockery, the humiliation; none of these things meshed with their expectations for the Messiah.  And so, as they took His body down from the cross and prepared it for burial in a borrowed tomb, it seemed as if their hope had died with Him.  As the Sabbath day arrived, requiring them to cease their preparation of the body for burial, it seemed to bring with it the frustration of an unfinished story.  The triumphant story of victory and deliverance that they had expected, suddenly turned into one of uncertainty and apparent defeat.  And what was next?  They had worked it all out in their heads, this Messianic reign with Jesus sitting on the throne and all of them sitting close by in positions of power and authority.  But what now?  With their leader laying in a grave, could their own demise be very far behind?
How could they have been deceived?  How could God let this happen?  These were their thoughts during those dark, dark days while Jesus' body lay in that guarded tomb. 
You've heard it said that it is always darkest, just before the dawn.  Well, it had never been darker than at that moment.  But there had also never been a greater hope than that which was about to dawn upon this world.  With the breaking of the dawn, Christ, Who is our light, walked out of that tomb and commanded darkness to flee.  He appeared holding the keys to death and hell that He had snatched from Satan's grip.  And He walked out with the power to offer eternal life to all who would believe in Him, because He had paid the price for their souls with His precious blood.
So from the darkest night in human history the brightest light began to shine and it is bright enough to illuminate the darkest night of the soul.
The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is the source of light for a sin-darkened world, and God has called us to carry that light to its darkest corners.   
It's time to go!