June 27 – Isaiah 60
I have been enjoying sunlight lately. We had some gloomy days in March and April and even into the beginning of the month of May. As I write this commentary, the sun is shining brightly and everything looks new and fresh and green outside my window. After enduring another long, and often cloudy New Hampshire winter and spring, summer is arriving with all its warmth and light! I love late May and early June, when it’s still not too hot, but one can sit outside, close one’s eyes, and turn one’s face to the sun and drink in the Vitamin D. It’s delightful. Each season has its charms, in my opinion. I’m delighting in late spring at the moment but by the time you read this, I’ll be delighting in summer!
This chapter talks a lot about light. After a time of great darkness, light will shine forth and bring God’s people home. The pictures Isaiah paints bring tears to my eyes. Little children riding on shoulders being brought to safety. Large ships pulling into harbor bringing food and goods aplenty for all. Kings from other nations delighted to step foot on Israel’s shores. What a picture of life on the newly restored earth that God is preparing for us! Honestly, Isaiah’s prose is amazing. I wish we could have read every chapter. I hope you will go back and read the ones we’ve missed. Each one so beautiful in its detail and teachings.
I especially love how Isaiah’s vision dovetails with John’s in Revelation. There will come a time when our temporary light, the sun, will no longer be needed. That’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? God Himself will be our light for He is light – of which the sun was only a shadow set in place for a time. Hear these beautiful words in Revelation and marvel with me at the days yet to come. Doesn’t it make you eager for our final home?
“I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” —Revelation 21:22-27 NIV
My verse: Isaiah 60:1 “Arise, Jerusalem! Let your light shine for all to see. For the glory of the LORD rises to shine on you.”
My response: Let your light shine! Oh Father God – You are the light. Before the sun was made and after the sun’s light fades … Your Light is eternal. Help me to shine reflecting Your light in my own life so others may see You.
