Lenten Devotion for 17 April 2011 Anno Domini

Lenten Devotion for 17 April 2011 Anno Domini

It behooves us to pause, consider, and ‘consolidate our position’ as the military term goes following a hard pressed campaign. We have been at the side of Christ as the last days have culminated in the moment of Holy Week. What have we learned, and what more will the LORD reveal according to His will to us as we fix our hearts upon the observance of these last days?

Who is Christ? WE know that He is the Bread of Life that came down from Heaven to sustain those of His own who believe. (John 6:35). He is the Water of Life which renews and invigorates the parched earth upon which it falls. (John 4:14). He is the executive agent of the Triune God at the moment of Creation of the worlds. (John 1:1-3). He is the Rock of Ages that followed the Children of Israel in the Wilderness journey. (1 Cor 10:4). He is the Pillar of Fire for Light (at night) and the Pillar of Smoke by day (for protection) to those in the Wilderness. These are all marvelous descriptive nouns for our Lord. Any one of them, or any combination, is not sufficient to express His greatness and nature. There is one description of Christ for which I am particularly partial – He is the Light of the World according to the Gospel of St John - Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”(John 8:12).

Any who knows me well knows of my fascination with physical and natural light. From the time of my earliest remembrance, I have pondered the properties of light and wondered at its definition. Unfortunately, in an age when man has developed nuclear fission and fusion, cured many ancient maladies, traveled to and from the Moon, and made transoceanic travel a matter of hours and not weeks; man has yet to be able to define two very fundament values – Light and Life! In my Academy studies, I came as close as I could get to learning about what Light is, but it was short of any true knowledge of its definition. Scientists still haggle over whether light travels in waves. Does it have mass? What is the medium over which it transits? The questions have been asked, but not answered. We can describe many of the properties of light: light travels always in a straight line, darkness is powerless before the tiniest gleam of light, light reflects from a sympathetic surface, light travels at an absolute and constant speed (according to experiments conducted in support of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity) – as a matter of fact, the speed of light is the only absolute that exists in physical science! Light reveals the true reality of the environment, it lights the way. Light gives life to this planet. Without light, the world would die. This is a wonderfully interesting subject, but there is another kind of Light that is far more important to us – Spiritual Light.

“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” (Isaiah 9:2). We are the people who sat in darkness. Every soul abides in darkness without the beacon Light of Christ as His source of Life. To those privileged to know Him and be claimed by Him, death is no real event – it is merely a shadow without substance. Christ will make this certain on the Cross at Calvary. Just as light is constant and straight in its travel, Christ is constant and righteous in His dealings. He is all-righteous! He was present at the beginning of Creation: “ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” (Gen 1:1-5) How long, O Lord, shall the Spirit of God brood over the waters of a dark heart stricken with draught and want. How long shall He tarry in withholding His right hand of Judgment from the nation that has known His Grace, and turned away? There is no place for darkness in the presence of the Lord. When He moved over the dark waters of this world, there must necessarily be light. When His Holy Spirit moves across the emerald plains and alabaster peaks of a land, there must come light! Judas, a lost and depraved man, went out into darkness out of the presence of Christ and returned in darkness in betraying Christ. When he had taken the sop from Christ, He went immediately out, and it was night. (John 13:30). Moreover, when he returned to the Garden with soldiers to whom he had betrayed Christ, it was under cover of darkness. So do all wicked travel in darkness.

The Sun is our source of light and energy. We must have it, or perish. It is not the brightest star in the heavens, but it appears so to us because it is the nearest. Christ is both the brightest Sun in our spiritual heaven as well as the nearest. (Proverbs 18:24). He is our Sun of Righteousness who has arisen “with healing in His Wings”! (Mal 4:2). He has come down from Glory to abide with us, to walk where we have walked, and to lead in all things first. Before His coming, the fathers looked to the “promise of His coming.” How simple for us of today to look back to the historical event of His coming! While He was among us, He was the Light of the World! When He ascended, He left the role to us of being the Light of the World in the sense that we are the reflected Light of Christ in the same way that the Moon provides the reflected light of the sun. God is the Great Lighthouse in the Harbor. But the lower lights must lead around the shoals and batteries surrounding the harbor for the distressed vessel to find secure anchorage. Without, Christ, the world is in darkness. Of course, He has not left us without light. We are lights, and He is our Bright and Morning Star (Rev 22:16) to be with us through the dark night of this world. He is the evening star as well.

What have we more to expectantly await? Just as the world waited those three days for Christ to rise, so must we await for His dawning as our Day Star when night shall be no more (2 Pet 1:19).

There was one period when darkness prevailed in the presence of Christ – His last three hours on the Cross. “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.” (Matt 27:45) This was an uncommon darkness as God could not behold the very sin that was the purpose of His Well-Beloved and Only Begotten Son having to die for our Redemption. But the Day Star shall dawn, and we shall be called at the trumpet’s blast. Will your name be on the roll? Will the Day Star arise for YOU?