All Through the Night
It was the quiet that woke me.
In the dark before dawn, everything was still—too still. The familiar sound of our whirring fan had gone silent, and I woke up with a confused sense that something was wrong. Then I heard the piercing swoop of a siren shoot through the night like a firework, over and over, like one bird calling to another—warning of danger.
Drew and I stumbled into the kitchen, where the rest of my family was huddled around the large picture windows that cover the entire face of my grandparents’ lakeside home. With awe we watched as the mountains which encircle our bay turned to flame. Tree after dry tree was consumed by an uncontainable fire; the sirens warned us, “leave now!”
In a house lit only by the reflection of fire on the lake and the weak glow of our cellphones, we hurriedly packed up our belongings as we prepared to flee from the house we had known and loved for over thirty years.
The home on Flathead Lake in Montana is the place I learned to walk—the place I fell in love with water and the spicy scent of sun-warmed pine, the one place that remained constant amid years of moving around the country. And now, there was a chance it would be consumed by the hungry fire which ravaged the hills around us.
Shortly before we left, I grabbed the item that felt most important to me: a framed photo of my grandmother holding me as a baby, in which our faces are pressed cheek to cheek and we are smiling at the camera with expressions of delight. As our cars headed out into the quiet night, I turned to take one last look at the lake home which now lay in the valley behind us.
The cloud cover reflected the eerie orange glow of a raging fire that terrified me with its beauty and power.
* * *
Long ago, the Israelites were awoken in the middle of the night. They were told to pack what they could and flee from the cruel tyranny of the Egyptians. This happened so quickly that they were forced to bring rounds of yeastless dough in their bags because they couldn’t afford the couple of hours it took to rise. That night, the Israelites were instructed to follow a huge pillar of fire through the desert, right up to the edge of the Red Sea where they set up camp.
The first major act of trust for the Israelites was not crossing the Red Sea; it was leaving their homes to follow a mysterious pillar of flame into the dark unknown,
trusting that its power and might represented a God who wanted to save them.
If I was suddenly faced with a huge, inexplicable floating fire pillar, I would certainly run. But the Israelites were running from something more deadly than fire—they were running from four hundred and thirty years of slavery and oppression. Following fire was the better choice.
As they followed, God’s powerful presence led them to safety:
By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud
to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire
to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.
Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night
left its place in front of the people.(Exodus 13:21-22)
The people of Israel still celebrate the night they left their homes to follow the God of cloud and fire. I love the instructions God gave Moses for celebrating this salvific night of Passover:
Because the LORD kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt,
on this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honor the LORD
for the generations to come.(Exodus 12:42)
This description is beautiful to me because it evokes imagery of God as a loving parent keeping watch over his children, all through the night.
Fifteen hundred years later on the night of Passover, the son of God would ask his friends to keep vigil with him:
“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
But they could not keep vigil with God on the one night a year that they celebrated God’s keeping vigil over them. Drowsy with unleavened bread and wine, the disciples fell asleep. In her poem Gethsemane, Mary Oliver laments this tragic irony:
Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be a part of the story.
That very night, the passover lamb was handed over to death in a final act of salvation.
The stories of God’s vigil-keeping for the Israelites and his sleepy disciples in the garden of Gethsemane speak to me of God’s faithful, watchful presence with us—a presence that is not dependent upon our vigilance, but upon his abundant love and grace. This is Good News, indeed.
Jesus’ final promise to his disciples was a permanent manifestation of his presence:
“Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Seven weeks after that Passover night, Jesus fulfilled his promise as tiny pillars of fire fell upon the heads of those who were waiting expectantly on the morning of Pentecost. As the children of God, we carry within us a pillar of fire that cannot be shaken—a permanent reminder of God’s presence in the person of the Holy Spirit.
* * *
There have been seasons of my life when I have forgotten the promise of God’s fiery presence. Currently, I am in a season of praying for clarity, guidance, and direction from God. I desire a clear path forward, but it has been slow to appear. I’ve longed for a guiding light—for my own pillar of fire to show me exactly where God is and where I should be in the desert of the unknown.
This post came about because I realized I’ve been asking for a guiding light that I’ve already been given.
Even when I cannot see the next step, am I willing to trust that the tongue of flame which burns in me is enough light to move and wait and keep watch with the Spirit of God?
This is my prayer, all through the night.
May you receive the words of this old hymn as a blessing on your own path through day and night, fire and cloud, clarity and mystery:
Deep the silence round us spreading,
All through the night;
Dark the path that we are treading,
All through the night.
Still the coming day discerning,
By the hope within us burning,
To the dawn our footsteps turning,
All through the night.
Amen.