April 21, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“No longer will the sun be your light by day, nor the brightness of the moon shine on your night; for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your splendor. Your sun will no longer set, and your moon will not wane; for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and the days of your sorrow will cease.” (Isaiah 60.19-20)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD TO US:

I will admit that I struggle with passages such as this and its New Testament companion in the Book of Revelation. My struggle is that I have no concept of a “day without end” and a “night that never begins.” I know there are places in the arctic regions, north and south, that experience some semblance of these. They experience it in part but not 24/365.25 . It is the marvel of a sunrise and a sunset that speaks to me of an ever-creative and ever-creating God. My mind marvels at the intricate details which God forges moment by moment for us to experience. My mind searches for the infinite imagination of God who have scanned the possibilities and then choses from them which one shall be and calls it into being. The Psalmist David declared, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is humankind that You are mindful of them, human beings that You care for them? (Psalm 8.3-4) And then I come across passages such as the one for today and I am stopped in my tracks with “Really God, after all that You have shown me and revealed to me in the splendid contrast of all living things, You desire an endless day and a never-starting night? What else? Cloudless days, no changes of the seasons, no extremes in temperatures; what else?” The problem is that my mind cannot fathom the depths of God’s mind. His ways, as Isaiah heard and declared, are not my ways and His thoughts are not my thoughts. God exceeds me. I am grateful for that because I am not enough. I do not know how to access the depths within me which God has knitted before I was born, yes, even before I was conceived.

It is there and here that I find myself then comforted with the immensity of God’s creativity and imagination. It is there and here that I marvel at the truth which He has made known for my provision and for our provision. God knows exactly what is needed for the moments we are about to experience. God anticipates the provision for the decisions we will make ourselves as we merge into the reality of life before us. Even in this, that we have freewill and free choice, God continues to explore the depths of the well of possibilities and present to us the wealth of opportunities. We may not agree. We may not see. We may not understand. We may not seize the day. We may miss a plethora of experiences in which we would have known the greater heights, depths and breadths of life’s vastness. Yet, God persists. God exists that we might come to know Him and by that know ourselves better. God provides that we might find ourselves trusting the more of Him with the across-the-board of us. And there I have to let my mind, heart, soul and spirit rest that what God has said for those days yet to come are the infinitely more and best for us in that moment called eternal life.

And in that, I have paused to reflect upon all that Jesus experienced as the man from Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, conceived in Jerusalem, sojourned in Egypt, walked in Israel, bore to Calvary, rested in the tomb, descended into Hell and was raised up to sit again at the right hand of the Father. It was what God chose out of the myriad of possibilities to be the only one that was right for us. I cannot imagine what Jesus must have truly felt and experienced in those moments which He shared with humanity. I can be sympathetic because I have had similar experiences. I cannot be empathetic because it is not my experience but His alone. He took on the burdens of all our sins and the singular penalty which is ascribed for sins which is death. He took on the sounds of the darkness of the world and silenced them. As He breathed His last having spoken blessings of forgiveness and compassion for the fallen, the challenged and the struggling, there was silence. After the earthquake, the rumble, the crash, there was the silence into which it was the profession of a Roman Centurion spoke, “Surely this man was the Son of God.” (Matthew 27.54) Out of that silence comes the revelation of a glorious day. It rises out of the darkness of doubt, despair and contrition which seems chaotic and numbing, soothing and disquieting. As for those, in whatever number, who approached the tomb room of Jesus of Nazareth and found the entrance to the throne room of Jesus the Christ. The stone was rolled away as surely as the Temple veil was torn in half. The demonstration of ultimate truth and reality is inescapable. Even the denials of many cannot undo the the facts of the matter: God is God. His sovereignty will not be denied. His love is everlasting. His mercy endures forever. That, mighty ones of God, is the very essence of this “day” which God declared to Isaiah, which Jesus declared to John, which they, in turn, declare to us. As glorious as it sounds, I cannot imagine it but I know it will happen as surely as God so loved us that He sent His only begotten Son into the world so that all who would believe on Him and receive Him as their Lord and Savior shall live forever in that reality which no one and nothing can separate us from.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness which we know is folly but righteous works which declare Your glory and further witness the truth that can set all who believe free from death. So may we live by the name of Jesus our Christ. AMEN.