Advent - A Spiritual Dawning

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned” (Isaiah 9:2).

What does it mean to have something dawn on you?  Does it mean your understanding is lit up as a new day is lit up with the dawn?  Jesus has come to redeem us.  Has it really dawned on you what that means?  God intends for all of us to have a personal spiritual dawning.

I remember at the age of fourteen being in the Swiss Alps just after World War II.  One day I decided to get up early to watch the dawn.  (The first chapter of Romans tells us we can clearly see God in his creation.)  I was full of bright ideas at that age, but I was not a believer at the time.  I never went to church, didn’t read my Bible, and wasn’t thinking about Christian things.  I just got up to see the dawn.  And sitting in the Swiss Alps, I saw an incredible display of God’s creative genius as the dawn came.  I was so overcome, I ran back to my bedroom, grabbed a stub of a pencil, and scribbled my first bit of poetry.  It wasn’t very good poetry, but it went something like this:

The day dawned softly, filling me with awe.

It seemed the other side of heaven’s door.

That God forgives my sin is plain today;

In spite of my sin, the sun did rise again.

Peter tells us, “We have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts”  (2 Pet. 1:19).  Have you considered the fact that you need a personal spiritual dawn?  That the morning star is meant to rise in your own heart?  We all sit in darkness until we’re enlightened by Jesus Christ, the light of the world.  In Revelation 22:16, Jesus calls Himself “the bright Morning Star.”

Light transforms everything it touches.  Take time to watch the sunrise some morning.  Notice how radically the light changes absolutely everything it touches.  The dawn of Christ is just like that.  Even in all the dark corners of our disobedience and unbelief, the rising of the Morning Star can transform us.

PRAYER

Lord, as I begin this Christmas season of celebrating Your physical birth into this world, help me to understand all that this dawning means in my life.  Thank You for revealing Yourself to me.  Thank You for transforming my life with the light of Your truth.  Amen.