‘The morning star often appears between two and three at night, when the darkness is complete and the faintest sign of morning is not yet visible.  So small that it threatens to vanish, the star seems unable to vanquish the overpowering darkness.  Yet when you see the morning star, you know that the night has been defeated.  For the morning star pulls the morning in behind it, just as certainly as Jesus pulls the Kingdom in behind Him.’  …Bob Goudzwaard

This letter is about Hope and Promise.  I remember a favorite sunrise many years ago that caught my attention so much that I had to stop driving long enough to take a photograph.  It still sits framed on the shelf of our family room.  It happened in Kearney, Nebraska, at least 20 years ago but was so memorable for its unique beauty.  However, this letter is about another sunrise, a sunrise that I will never forget but for a completely different reason.  This time we were traveling through Topeka, Kansas, just before sunrise.  That’s the darkest part of night; the moon had descended and except for Topeka’s artificial light, seemed the whole world was dark.  Darkness had overpowered the day and everything was hidden in the deep black of that night.  There it was.  Unexpectedly for me.  I hadn’t seen the morning star in many years, not that they’re so rare, it’s just that I usually like sleeping a bit longer than getting up at dawn.  When I saw it a story went off in my mind.  It was a story that came from an experience years ago that features a Promise.

It first began in the ‘belly’ of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.  On a tour of that cave with our family, the guide turned off all the lights and complete and total darkness wrapped everyone in that cave.  In that cave it was darkness unmatched by any previous experience. Then the guide lit a match and suddenly all things in that cavern were revealed.  Every person and thing could be seen from that single small light.  Just a small match shined enough light to reveal hundreds of square feet of cave; nothing was left unseen.  That experience prompted me to do a little research about light and its unique relationship, or properties, in relationship to darkness.  That led me to look at the story of the Morning Star mentioned in Revelation.  Jesus the Messiah is that Morning Star in Chapters 2 and 22 and that’s what came flooding back into my mind on that early morning in Kansas.

Many times God reveals much of His heart through things seen and not just things written.  In a baby’s birth we see an explosion of Life as the Father gives it, in family we see the Father’s bend toward personal relationship and unconditional love.  In the sky we see the simple and profound creativity of a Creator.  That kind of seeing helps our hearing many times.  Actually, it’s said that 80% of our memories come from what we see.  Physically seeing that star created a renewed awareness of Promise.

The very last thing that Christ called Himself, the last description of Himself, was the ‘Morning Star’ (Rev. 22).  Christ did not repeat the familiar titles used in earlier scripture (ones we’re all familiar with at Christmas or Easter) but chose this final time to reveal Himself in a new and unique way.  It’s a picture of Hope and Promise at a most unlikely time.  The morning star appears when the sky is most dark, when our future is the hardest to see, a time perhaps that appears we are the most lost, without hope of where we are or what direction to take.  Could be a time when the world is most discouraging.  Then, in that deep darkness (perhaps not unlike today) when the Morning Star appears (and He has) we know that the dawn has began.  It triggers the promise of a new day in our eyes, in our minds.  It’s in the darkness when we can’t see that we get to trust the most.  The morning star in that real Kansas sky was about to raise the curtain on a gorgeous sunrise.  That small flicker of light in the total darkness of that morning was announcing the approach of a light that would dispel all that darkness; all that was hidden, all that had not been revealed was about to be made known.  All the deep darkness of the night was going to be replaced with a brilliant dawn that would overpower all the darkness of the night.

Jesus Christ calls Himself that star.  Any mystery that had been hidden before was revealed in Him.  The power of a Kingdom came with the entry of this Morning Star.  Its Promise of a New Day was fulfilled with the rising of the Son.  When I saw that single star in the Kansas sky it reminded me that even in this present darkness, a darkness that confuses and blinds, there is a Hope and a Promise of a New Day that’s set before us.  His new day can’t be stopped by politics, or hatefulness or ignorance.  This star of promise has come and rules the day, no matter how much darkness ‘grunts’ to beat it down, beat it out.  I can get pretty distracted and concerned about the condition of the world and our apparent voyage away from the Love of God that I see the world taking.  It’s overwhelming to sit and think about the consequences of our choices over the past many years.  We know from Scripture that all our actions create consequences, all things sow and reap, and it’s most concerning to think of our future founded on the rejection of the Love of God.  But, God is not wringing His hands about His future.  That star reminded me that in the middle of that total darkness, our hope is not in men, not armies and chariots, but in the Words and Heart of God.  It was most dark on the Cross of Christ.  For a moment all looked lost.  Everything that ‘believers’ had put their hope in was hanging on that Cross, dead on that Cross.  All that they had hoped for, all that they believed to be true about ‘their king’ was killed on the hill of Jerusalem.  Hopelessness weighed heavy on not only the people of Calvary, but all of mankind.   A deep darkness dropped as Jesus took his last breath.  Yet, there was a Promise hanging on the lips of Jesus.  What those people saw was not the story of the day.  They did not know that the darkness there at the death of the King of Glory embraced a new hope.  A new Light was about to appear and all that they had put their trust in, all the hopes of a political kingdom, was being converted into a Heavenly Kingdom.  Not a Kingdom of meat or drink (fleshly) but a Heavenly Kingdom that ran in opposition to what they were experiencing and interpreting.  He would come back, He would rise again, His Light would kindle again. And when that happened He would reveal all things, and every man could see the hidden things of that night.

That Kansas black turned into a beautiful golden light and everything that the darkness had hidden was suddenly exposed.  As hard and weighty as our circumstances become, no matter how bleak the world’s condition looks, we can keep going forward because Jesus Christ, our Morning Star of Promise, has already come.  We know that in spite of how dark our eyes see the world around us, our hearts know that the darkness of our lives, of the world, have been defeated with the rising of the dawn of Christ’s resurrection.  Jesus revealed a Kingdom that was attached to this Star.  Because of Jesus’ life, because of Christ’s resurrection, there will never be a total darkness in our lives again.  The Morning Star of Promise is in every dawn for us.  Each day is a new day with the Promise of a Kingdom.

Look, we need not fear anything.  Surely, Life as we experience it every day can be tough.  We, being incomplete in our understanding of all that God has given to us, live with a bit of darkness lingering in our lives each day.  The full disclosure of The Revelation of Jesus Christ still gradually works its way through us.  That doesn’t totally happen in an hour, a day or years; however, we gradually come to know Him, just as each day comes with a star, a dawn and a full day of sun.  Christ has been given to us uniquely and expressively to reveal all things in the Light of God, Son and Spirit.  Daily, He stands and knocks (Rev. 3-20) for entry into our earthly lives.  His resurrection changed everything.  Now, just as that dawn progressed across that Topeka sky, we can, if willing, see more and more of God revealed in our lives.  Jesus Christ has announced the dawn of a new day for us.