The sun shall be no more
your light by day,
nor for brightness shall the moon
give you light;
but the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your God will be your glory. Isaiah 60:19
When reading this beautifully poetic and metaphor piece from the Book of Isaiah, one begins to wonder where reality ceases and imagination begins. I say that because the non-believer or skeptic will undoubtedly wave this passage off as some fantasy that has no bearing in real life; and on the flip side of that, the romantic will wave away the sun light waiting for God to be the everlasting light. And in both camps, I would believe that they would find themselves in a dilemma of faith. First, to the one waiting for God to be the literal everlasting light; and secondly, to the one where darkness is all that pervades– in both cases, the individual will be found to have lost any sense of reality.
What does this mean for us then? It’s simple. Until the day comes when the sky is so darkened that it is clear that the end has come, we must have hope that when those days are amongst us, we have hope because God will be what we need at that moment when we need light. At the same time, until the literal end is here, when our perspective is so darkened, so as nothing we do or seek gives us any hope, we have God to rely on to get us through those tough times. When hope is gone and our lives are grim with dreariness, God will be our salvation. Regardless of whether we look at this passage in light of a literal apocalyptic message and a metaphoric hopelessness, every person can be assured of one thing: God is our glory through the salvific work of Jesus– that will be our glory (or hope). That’s all we need. That’s all we might ever get.
If you’re in the pits because of your circumstances, have hope– God is your everlasting light. If you’re living in the apocalypse, have hope- God is still your everlasting light. Because of that fact, you shall never be in a place where you have no light for guidance. God is our glory.
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