Sunday May 24 LIGHT

Faith – day – LIGHT; seeing dawn as resurrection |

Have you ever watched for the morning because the night was unwelcome? Do we not watch for our number or name to be called and  come up Let’s be confident that the dawn is not when the sun goes down.  The current order of night following day is a relic of humanity’s starting blocks.  We feel light on our skin and know it is as real as the mystery of grace gets.  Darkness never wins (John 1:5) and the warmth of the sun reminds us of the divine realities.  In the coming glory there is no night and apostolic wisdom defines us as “day children”  (1 Thessalonians 5:4-5).

In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; (Revelation of John 21:25)

And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illuminate them; and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation of John 22:5)

We can reasonably expect the natural world to have its cycles but we are also assured that darkness and night are banished. Does not the text actually say that the Lord will build new Heaven and the new Earth?

Hope – day – LIGHT; trusting illumination |

We have a dangerous dance with light and darkness that reveals a death hug.  Recall the rejection of Moses, Ezra’s dissolution of mixed marriages, and the Pharisees challenging YAHWEH’S shepherd, salvation, and light. Trust is rare and darkness is deep and popular. Hope is still precious and is more than a thread or rope to what is to come ( 1 Peter 1:13).  Hope can be also completely efficacious.

Love – day – LIGHT embracing warmth |

It can be forgotten that light comes to dispel darkness, not to increase lamps and candles. If the Bible is a lamp then what service do we perform by writing many books? Is that how one spreads the heat? The Sun of righteousness needs no assistance from luminaries.

Death – day – LIGHT; becoming dusk’s paradox |

Make a deal with your adversary!  Death is everybody’s enemy and humanity has not found a way yet to even significantly slow down death’s advance.  LeBron’s serpent in Moses’s experience captures our paradox with high definition. Death’s day came in the middle of an afternoon as a man from Nazareth hung on a cross. Night fell twice as light was bequeathed to the human race.

1. The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom should I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life; Whom should I dread? 2. When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, My adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell. (Psalms 27:1-2)