Every winter gives way to summer. Every summer eventually fades to winter. Every day ends in night, and every night ends in day. These cycles have been circling for longer than anyone can remember, and they will continue long after our own lives are forgotten—but they cannot continue forever. Someday, the cycles must finish. And will they finish with an everlasting day, or a never-ending night?
We know how stars die. We’ve seen it in our telescopes. We know that given enough time, our own reliable sun will slowly collapse under its own weight. Does that mean the ultimate end of all things is unrelenting night? If our only context is the natural world, then this is the inevitable conclusion. Entropy wins. Energy becomes less and less usable every day. Light fades, and life can only hold out so long.
If that’s the way things are, then all you can do is soak up as much sunshine and life as you can for the few flickering moments you get before the darkness overwhelms you and everything and everyone you love. Gather it all and hold it for as long as you can before death comes and pries your fingers open. This is the best you’ll get. Night is coming.
But night doesn’t have to be the end.
The downward spiral of decay and death has been interrupted. Our encroaching dusk has been invaded by a new and glorious dawn. The Creator of light entered his own world in the person of Jesus Christ. He came on purpose to take the darkness of our sin—and the judgment and death and hell it deserved—on himself. Not even the darkness of the grave could extinguish his light. The darkest hour came before the greatest dawn. Jesus Christ walked out of his own tomb. He did not do this for his own sake, but for ours. He bore our shame and guilt and darkness so that he could give us the light of his own eternal life. Now death itself has begun to work backwards for every one of his children who put their trust in him. For God’s people, the end of the story has changed from never-ending night to everlasting day. This changes everything.
Without Jesus, the happiness and life we enjoy are temporary, and quickly passing. We snatch a few stolen moments of light on our way to an infinite abyss.
With Jesus, it is not the light that is temporary, but the darkness. With him, we pass through a few temporary shadows on our way to an endless joy.
For a Christian, even death itself is only a passing shadow. In Christ, the cycle of day and night ends definitively in day. This life is not the best we’ll get. It’s the worst—even with all its beauty and joy. The day that is coming for God’s people is not dimmed by the tiniest shadow. It is full. It is glorious. It is forever. And it is freely given to anyone, anywhere who puts their hope, and their life, their sin, their guilt, and their everything, into the nail-scarred hands of Jesus.
Have you?
“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” — John 1:4-5
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