“The God of Good Mornings”

Sunday, April 01, 2018

When Jesus rose from the dead, everything changed. Realities as old as Adam & Eve were suddenly rewritten. Death was defeated by life. Fear was defeated by hope. And darkness was defeated by light. And yet, it seems that God saw fit to announce this universe-altering event to only a very small audience—a few women who misunderstood it at first, and a few men who doubted it at first. And it begs the question: why would God not alert all humanity to the fact that he is bringing life? Why not give the nations an indication that fear has lost to hope? Why would God not at least signify to that part of the world that darkness was defeated by God’s light?

He did. The sun rose.

Every time that morning dawns, God reminds all creation that something new is being done. Every morning, he awakens life, quells fear, and banishes darkness with light.

As he created the world, each new level of his life-giving work was accompanied by the words, “there was morning” (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31). When Abraham was called to demonstrate how God would bring us life in Christ, we are told Abraham “rose early in the morning” (Gen. 22:3). When the Psalmist talked about the goodness of God, he said, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psa. 30:5). And when Jesus rose from the dead, even those who were unaware of what God had done in that Garden were experiencing God’s gift of new life as the sun rose too.

Dawn may be a daily occurrence all over the world, but that doesn’t take away from its significance in Jesus’ resurrection story. If anything, it adds to the daily significance of sunrise. The resurrection points us to what the daily dawn has always been showing us: that ours is a God who has always had a plan to bring us life with the rising of the Son.

- Dan Lankford, minister

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