Arise and shine

It’s a classic Easter verse, and for good reason. It is sometimes printed over a background of a stunning sunrise scene.

I think wistfully of years past, of sunrise services followed by hot cross buns and coffee by a lake in Melbourne or overlooking the plains of Western Sydney at a lookout in Glenbrook. The discomfort of leaving my cosy bed has been long forgotten. But there was none of that this year … not with the pandemic restrictions … not unless we were to keep moving and count it as ‘morning exercise’. And that would pretty much rule out hot cross buns and coffee with friends afterwards.

Yet the incredible truth of Easter has not changed.

Less appealing, but more intensifying because of the contrast, is the following verse in the chapter of Isaiah from which the ‘greeting card verse’ above comes:

“See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.”

Isaiah 60:2 NIV

Darkness and Light

When I think of darkness, I think of deeds done in secret, illegal or illicit. Darkness doesn’t feel safe – you’re at risk of accident or being the victim of crime. Darkness is disorienting. It’s bad.

Light, on the other hand, feels safe and good. Everything is visible and transparent. Even when under a surgeon’s knife or dentist’s drill, we can be confident that nothing will be missed if there is a bright light above us.

That’s what this ordinary Australian Christian woman thinks when it comes to darkness and light. I did a quick search to see how Bible writers used the concepts of light and darkness. The list was incredibly long. I shall only mention a few verses as they relate to Easter and our hope in these dark days.

Movement from darkness to light

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Genesis 1:1-2 NIV

The Bible starts with darkness. However, light is very quickly introduced into the creation narrative.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

Genesis 1:3-4 NIV

And now, skipping right over Isaiah 60:1-2 (the ‘Easter verses’ quoted at the start of this blog post), let us jump to the very end of Scripture. There we read of brilliant light in the city of God – the city which we, the people of God, will one day call ‘home’.

The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp….

There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light.

Revelation 21:23, 22:3

How does God bring about this great transition from darkness to light? See Jesus’ claim:

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

John 8:12.

And that is the great message of Easter. Isaiah 60:1 looks to the light of God breaking into a dark earth, while Isaiah 60:19-20 looks even further ahead. Can you spot the connection between Isaiah’s prophecy about light below and that of John’s Revelation?

The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more; the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow will end.

Isaiah 60:19-20

Called from darkness into light

As any good Christian will tell us, we live in a ‘now-and-not-yet’ period. Yes, Jesus has lived, died, risen again, ascended into heaven and sent his Spirit to indwell his people. And yet there is so much more to come. The history-making events of that Resurrection Sunday are like the sunrise of Isaiah 60:1-2 in which the blazing glory of God is breaking into a dark world.

This current pandemic that has turned all our lives upside-down and even ended some slams into our faces the ugly truth that we still live in a broken world in which decay and destruction remain.

If only we could understand the mindset of a New Testament Christian. Their worldview of the spiritual realm was perhaps more accurate than that of post-Englightenment Christians like me today. They were better able to grasp the meaning of passages which suggest that we are part of a cosmic battle in which children of light are pitted against the powers of this dark world. There are many verses that illustrate this concept. I shall just quote one.

But you are … a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

2 Peter 2:9b

How then should we live?

As a woman who follows Jesus, the light of life, I want to ‘live as a child of light’ (Ephesians 5:8, 1 Thessalonians 5:5). I want to ‘walk in the light’ (John 8:12, 1 John 1:7). I want to live out in this broken, aching, decaying world what it means to ‘Arise, shine, for your light has come’ (Isaiah 60:1).

But what does that mean in practice?

It means interpreting the events of these dark days in the context of eternity. It does NOT mean pretending that everything is okay right now. But it does mean very deliberately looking towards the one who is light and centering myself … ourselves … in him. Just as the apostle John wrote the book of Revelation in obedience to the risen Christ to encourage people to stand strong during the dark days of the early church, so we too need to look to him now.

Complaining and arguing are two things the apostle Paul particularly warned against even as he urged early church Christians to ‘shine like stars in the universe’ (Philippians 2:14a, 15b). That is not to say that I can’t admit that I miss gathering as a family at Easter … that I am sad not to spend time with a family member who was to have come down for the Easter holiday … and yes, that I even miss crawling out of bed at some crazy time of the morning to go and watch the sun rise with friends on Easter Sunday. That is not to say that I can’t admit that I miss the affirmation and interaction that come with both teaching and learning face-to-face with flesh-and-blood people these days. That is not to say that I must only think about the positive things that have come out of these strange times. (Yes, there are some.) But there is a bigger reality and when I focus on that, our current troubles dwindle to a healthier perspective.

Hope

We know that the whole creation has been groaning, as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Romans 8:22-23

Now-and-not-yet – that’s the time in which we live. Children of the light, walking in the light – that is us. And yet it’s still only dawn, metaphorically speaking. God’s great light has broken into the world but there is so much more to come. Creation restored, sickness and sorrow long gone and society centred around God himself … all that is ahead of us.

We are living in a fallen, broken world, but this isn’t the end of the story. Arise! Shine! For the light has come! The glory of the Lord has risen upon us!

Happy Easter.