The Dark Night of the Soul

As I said at the beginning of our service, today is Palm Sunday. It the day the church marks as the beginning of Holy Week, where we track with Jesus’ last week, starting with his arrival in Jerusalem, leading us to the cross on Friday and then to the empty tomb on Sunday. It’s an emotional week, filled with celebration, devastation and redemption.

Every previous year where I have preached this week, I preach on the triumphal entry where the people lay palm branches down in front of Jesus and worship him as the king who has come to save his people. It’s a beautiful story and I challenge you to read it yourself in one of the gospels.

But for today, I want us to do something different. We are going to jump to Thursday in holy week and look at the story where Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane.

Have you ever heard of a term called, “The Dark Night of the Soul?” It comes from a poem by a 16th Century Spanish monk named St. John of Cross. John had a hard life. His father died when John was a baby and so he grew up very poor, moving into a school for poor children, where he excelled in his academics. As he grew up, he felt a call to serve God and help restore the Carmelite order. He became friends with St. Teresa of Avila and soon began to live a very stripped down life, where he lived in a tiny house without any comforts while he sought God. But the reforms he was trying to establish with Teresa, faced resistance and he was thrown in a prison for 9 months.

“His prison cell, a stone room barely large enough for his body, had formerly been a latrine. His single robe rotted from his body in the fetid heat of summer, and in winter he shivered in the rag that remained. Several times a week, the brothers brought him out to be flogged while they enjoyed their midday meal. Otherwise, he sat in the darkness, tracking the stars through the single small window, high up in the wall of his cell.”

While in that cell, St. John of the Cross experienced something profound. In his darkest moment, he encountered Jesus in a way that utterly changed him. This is how he describes it in his poem The Dark Night of the Soul:

On a dark night, Kindled in love with yearnings–oh, happy chance!– I went forth without being observed, My house being now at rest.

In darkness and secure, By the secret ladder, disguised–oh, happy chance!– In darkness and in concealment, My house being now at rest.

In the happy night, In secret, when none saw me, Nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart.

This light guided me More surely than the light of noonday To the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me– A place where none appeared.

Oh, night that guided me, Oh, night more lovely than the dawn, Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover, Lover transformed in the Beloved!

Upon my flowery breast, Kept wholly for himself alone, There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him, And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.

The breeze blew from the turret As I parted his locks; With his gentle hand he wounded my neck And caused all my senses to be suspended.

I remained, lost in oblivion; My face I reclined on the Beloved. All ceased and I abandoned myself, Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.

St. John experienced anguish and pain and yet did not turn away from God, but turned to God and found an intimacy with Jesus, his beloved, that he had not experienced before.

How about you? Have you ever experienced a time when life felt so heavy that it might crush you; a time when you felt distant from God or even abandoned by him; a time when pain seems to overtake your faith? Jesus did. Jesus experienced his own dark night of the soul on the night he was betrayed by his disciple, Judas, just before his arrest.

So let’s read this story and see what God says to us in it. We are going to read in Mark, chapter 14, verses 32 to 42.

Mark 14:32–42 NLT

They went to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and Jesus said, “Sit here while I go and pray.” He took Peter, James, and John with him, and he became deeply troubled and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” He went on a little farther and fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by. “Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Then he returned and found the disciples asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Then Jesus left them again and prayed the same prayer as before. When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn’t keep their eyes open. And they didn’t know what to say. When he returned to them the third time, he said, “Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But no—the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Up, let’s be going. Look, my betrayer is here!”

Pray.

1. Admit where you are at

We have a lot of idioms about covering up where we are at.

My grandma used to say, “I have to go put my face on.”

To prevent having overly whiny kids, one of our family mottos was “Suck it up, princess”

“Sweep it under the carpet”

But for us to move forward in Christian maturity, for us to encounter Jesus in the depths of our soul when we are experiencing our dark nights of the soul, we must be honest about where we are at. The days of pretending to be all good when you feel like everything is falling apart, needs to be over. It’s way past time in the church to ditch the masks that make everyone think everything is good, when you feel broken inside.

Now there are times and places where expressing your brokenness may not be appropriate. I was at the movies one time with Bekah watching King Arthur and we could hear a woman crying as she and her boyfriend argued and broke up - during the movie. And I’m sitting there feeling pastorally compassionate for them, a little sinfully curious about the details and also annoyed that they are talking and crying during the movie.

While it’s not appropriate to be expressive of our dark nights of the soul at certain times and in certain places, it is important for our mental and spiritual health to be able to be honest about where we are at.

Jesus said, “My soul is crushed with grief, to the point of death.” - Mark 14:34 NLT. Here, in this olive grove that is called Gethsemane, on the night he will be betrayed by Judas that will end up in his death, Jesus acknowledges his brokenness and doesn’t try to hide from it. He allows himself to feel the depths of his sorrow and grief knowing that there is some pain you can’t run away from, some hurts you can’t avoid and some heartbreaks you can’t numb. Some sorrows just need to be walked through and this passage is about Jesus walking through his pain. But in order to do that, you have to acknowledge how you really are.

2. Gather your team

“He took Peter, James and John with him and he became deeply troubled and distressed.” - Mark 14:33 NLT

Galatians 6:2 NLT

Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.

3. Pray

“Sit here, while I go and pray.” - Mark 14:32 NLT

1 Peter 5:7 NLT

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.