One of the most poignant moments in the gospels is when John the Baptist, near the end of his life, sends a very sad message to Jesus, “Are you ‘he who is to come’ or are we to look for another?” What does this tell us? It foretells the possibility of the dark night.
There are 2 dark nights: one being a difficulty that happens in the soul of a person who is serious about prayer. When such a one has decided to give up serious sin, one can be tormented by all kinds of fallacious reasoning so as to keep the sinner in his ways. Because habits of sin are very difficult to get free from, when deliverance does happen, one may enter into a darkness, a feeling that this desired freedom is not worth the effort.
Most people who are serious about loving the Lord, and serious about wanting to rid themselves of whatever stands between them and God will encounter this dark night, called “the dark night of the senses.”
The other dark night is far more difficult. This is “the dark night of the spirit” that John went through during his incarceration before he was beheaded. Only a few hardy souls face this dark night, but it may just be the reward of one who truly wished to grow in sincerity and truth.
John had spent his entire life in service to the living God. There was no one, Jesus had said, born of woman who was greater than John the Baptist. John’s main mission in life was to prepare the way of the Lord and then to point out the Lord’s anointed when He came as “the lamb of God.” When Jesus did appear on the scene John had the humility to say about Him, “I am not worthy to untie His sandal strap!” - and to say to Him, “I should be baptized by you!” And when word came to John some time later that more people, indeed even his own disciples, were going over to follow Jesus, he had the humility to say, “He must increase and I must decrease.”
John had done his job very well. He was even visited with a martyr’s crown for speaking truth to the powerful. But before that beheading John was troubled. He had pointed out Jesus as the Messiah, but where was the fair dealing for those who have been sinned against? Where was the promise day of the Lord? Where was the day of wrath, the day of vengeance? Where was the winnowing fan that would clear out the threshing floor of all the chaff? Where was the justice of God? Where was the recompense due to all evil doers? Was John wrong in pointing out this Jesus who rarely if ever spoke of the day of the Lord or the wrath of God, who instead healed the sick, forgave sinners, gave sight to the blind, and, yes, even raised the dead? John was now in “the dark night of the spirit,” and so he sent word to Jesus, “Are you ‘he who is to come’ or are we to look for another?”
In the dark night of the spirit all the supports that came as a package with a life of faith disappear. There is no consolation. There is no encouragement from within. Even within a loving family or church community, understanding, support, encouragement can disappear, and the one in this dark night feels very much alone. Even within one’s own soul, all looks like a mistake and a fraud. One cannot see the good one has done. It’s all straw. One’s sins are as poignant as can be; one’s paltry response to God is painfully clear. There is no reinforcement to believe that God even exists. All supports for believing are taken away.
The call here is a call to naked faith. The choice before me is to see life as absurd, and the way of Christ as most absurd, or to believe because of a decision to believe in God despite all evidence to the contrary, despite all proof that my life of faith has been meaningless. Naked faith. That was the state of soul behind John’s question, “Are you ‘he who is to come’ or are we to look for another?”
This is not depression. In fact, it is more like hell. Or, better put, it is going through purgatory while yet on this earth. It is the complete purification of the soul so as to prove one’s faith even when there is no reason to believe. This state seems unending; indeed, Mother Teresa went through this dark night of the spirit from the time she encountered the Lord on that Indian train ride that prompted her to found her order of nuns to serve the poorest of the poor – until her death so many years later.
Eventually one finds solace in this desert. Though the felt experience of God is but a memory, the effect of one’s work is objectively profoundly effective.
What would motivate a person to endure even the lesser dark night, not to mention “the dark night of the spirit.” It has to be, it must be, a passionate love for the Lord that seeps into the very marrow of our being, deeper than our emotions, stronger than our will power, uttering “I believe” with the very fiber of our being. Even if the whole world would abandon You Lord, even if I should fail you, and stumble and fall, I will never desert You Lord. And if I do, because I am weak, then Lord, conquer my weakness and bring me into utter fidelity to You and Your Word.
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