(Fallen) Creation and (Warm) Redemption

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It is because we believe in redemption that we are able to thank God for our creation.

~ Adolph Saphir, Our Day-Life, Thoughts on John IX: 4 (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1878), p. 81

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I talk with people from time to time who, facing down the pain and difficulty of life, say “It’d be better if I wasn’t alive.”

These are not easy conservations. They involve on the ground, practical help. Wisdom for navigating whatever circumstances, arguments, or dilemmas have brought about this conclusion.

They also require something more. People on the cold hard ground of fallen creation need refreshing with the warmth of redemption.

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But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.

~ Malachi 4:2

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When Christ comes to shine on us in salvation, it is as the sun rises. The night is dark, cold, uncertain. Those early hours of the morning when the light of day is only a promise hidden in the gloom, the night is a burden hard to bear.

Then the sky begins to lighten. The grass begins to wake. The first bird begins to chirp it’s morning toon, a trumpeter for the savior of the cold dark wasteland of night. And then, as the clouds on the horizon breaks, the sun crashes over the mountains in the distance, and the first rays come over the rolling hills of creation. O the joy of those first tastes of the sun’s rays! The sweet smile on the faces of those bathed in those first kisses on the sun’s warmth speaks volumes to its impact. Like the Spirit resting on the Son, the rays of the sun rest on us, like wings of a dove.

It is not that we have moved. It is that the sun has risen upon us. This is what those we speak to need. We speak constantly of Christ. We offer Him – in offers of prayer and in praying; in practical aid; in philosophical speculation met with the light of revelation; in the questions of wandering hearts answered with a narrow door and straight path. As we speak, we pray that He dawns in hearts with the warmth of salvation!

It is Jesus, when lifted up as the sun in the early morning, who draws all people to Himself (John 12:32).

Life can be so frustrating. Creation, and our path in it, can seem like a ravine filled with jagged rocks. The decay into death, the trouble of life’s cares, the pain of broken relationships, the spiral into despair. All of creation appears to us as the depths of night – wet, dark, cold, alone.

May the sun rise in our hearts. May Jesus be to us the fullness of the glory of God in the sight of His face. May He irradiate us in the warmth of His glory, in the freedom and thankfulness of redemption. Then may we thank Him for our creation, and the night of our world turn to day.