Day 66

Numbers 8:1‐9:23; Mark 13:14‐37; Psalm 50:1‐23; Proverbs 10:29‐30

The Brightness of God

As I reflect on the passages from Numbers, Mark, and Psalms, I am aware of the recurring references to light. These references call to mind a hymn by Kathleen Thomerson, the text of which begins “I want to walk as a child of the light.” The hymn text makes many references to glories of light including the “brightness of God” and “the Lamb is the light of the city of God.”

In the passage from the Book of Numbers, Aaron is instructed to place lamps before a lavishly beautiful lampstand of hammered gold. Light, the first element to appear above a dark and formless void in the Genesis account of creation, was given an exalted place. The three concluding verses of the selection from Mark’s Gospel warn us to be awake at the moment of the Second Coming, that we may not be caught without light as were the foolish virgins in Matthew’s account of the Parable of the Ten Virgins. In like manner, Psalm 50 tells us that “The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.”

We become so accustomed to having light available almost daily from the sun or at the flick of a switch by night, that it is easy to overlook that it is a precious gift from God – a crucial part of our existence and a building block of life itself.

Randall B. Krum