I felt the shadow of death pass over me.  It was deep, cold and eclipsed the blazing midday sun.

The search for my valuables proved fruitless.  I had to accept the possibility that they'd been stolen.  I knew I was going to be inconvenienced. I knew it was going to cost money to replace everything. But strangely that wasn’t the concern that was foremost in my mind.  All I wanted to do was see my wife and my kids.

Life often travels along just fine with no major unpleasantries.  Then something kicks you in the guts, leaving your stomach churning, bursting your bubble of security and a sinking feeling of your vulnerableness.  I only had my valuables taken, but I realised how easy it is for other people to see an opportunity and exploit it.  You don't know when you are being watched you don't know when you are vulnerable; you don't know who is around you and what risks and opportunities that might take to serve their gain.  Think of the poor Jill Meagher who was murdered in Melbourne recently.  30,000 people walked the streets in protest against an opportunistic man who saw a moment to gratify himself and took her life.  We live in a world that is held hostage to darkness, where people exploit opportunities to their own gain. 

I have been robbed quite a few times.  My first experience of being robbed was from Manly waterworks, as a naive 16-year-old, I left my bag under a dustbin.  I had to travel home in soaking wet clothes and had no money to buy any food.  Twice from my car I’ve been robbed, each time causing considerable damage to the vehicle.  Once my home was broken into, leaving broken windows and doors and ransacked bedrooms.  Once from inside my tent I had valuables stolen while I was sleeping.  The tent was slashed, my car tyres let down as a hand groped around inside to snatch valuables.  Another time a shopkeeper handed in my wallet that I dropped in his shop only to pocket the $50 cash that was in it.  And now after years of surfing, someone has ripped my stuff of the beach.  No where is safe.

Human nature.  It sucks.  Most people don't go around as professional thieves.  Instead it’s more often just opportunistic thievery.  Ordinary people, committing crimes because the opportunity is there.  We are bent sticks that cannot be straightened.

It’s not just the physical loss, but the emotional tolls…places you love become memories of violation.  This surf spot is no longer a quirky, uncrowded, favourite break…but a place I was violated.  This camp spot I adore…a place I was breached.  This home where I once felt secure, a venue where I was taken off guard, invaded.

In No Country for Old Men, the Texan sheriff often reflects on the theme of darkness, its omnipresence and suffocating unstoppableness.  But the story concludes with the Texan sheriff recalling a dream of himself as a boy riding with his father on their horses on a journey through deep darkness.  The father passes the boy and ride ahead and the boy is left riding in darkness.  The darkness seems impenetrable, overwhelming and beyond challenge.  But comfort is found in knowing that ahead of him will be his father waiting, with a fire, warming himself in the light.  There is hope, that despite the sinister, overwhelming darkness, light will not be conquered. 

This hope is more than wishful thinking and optimism about human nature and its goodness.  John’s gospel begins with these words about Jesus: ‘in him was life and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not overcome it’ (John 1:5).  Jesus came into the world to bear witness against our darkness.  But he didn’t come to condemn us; instead he came to absorb the darkness.  His death took the heat for all human failure, brokenness and violations.  His resurrection nullified the darkness, called it void: ‘you have no place here’.

While we wait for this reality to be our experience both in our hearts and in our society, what do we do with human nature in the present?  I hear the voice of the one who has defeated the darkness.  “I too was violated by the evil of human nature”.  It is a great comfort.  We don’t have a God who cannot understand our situation but one who has experienced the depths of our own violation.  As Hebrews says, ‘because He himself suffered when he was tempted he is able to help those who are being tempted’ (Heb 2:18).  How amazing is it to think that God’s Son actually knows what it’s like to be violated, abused, and wronged. 

He’s also doing something about our experience.  He is with us now by His Spirit, guiding us through our own valley of the shadow (Ps 13).

I’m grateful things weren’t worse with any of the robberies I have experienced.  I’m glad I wasn’t around for that would mean certain violence; no thief is going to walk away calmly.  I think of all the times in the world many people suffer many terrible griefs.  It does remind us of a world we don’t want.  It does make us want someone to turn the light on soon.