THE UNCLOUDED DAY COMES AFTER THIS ONE

The sun was shining. Yet, in a solar eclipse, the moon dimmed the sun’s light. I remembered how eerie it was that while the sky was clear, and it was near noon, the sunlight seemed darkish, diminished. What should have been a perfect day bringing joy became shadowed with solemnity and melancholy. COVID and the subsequent nation-wide protesting and rioting have eclipsed the bright summer sun. It has eclipsed the light in our lives, our holidays, our church services, our family gatherings. This present reality that has overcast our lives with a dark shadow has brought from the dusty archives of memory a song we used to frequently sing when I was a child, “The Unclouded Day”: O the land of cloudless day, O the land of an unclouded day, O they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise, O they tell me of an unclouded day. But, notice, the unclouded day is not one in the run of human events as we know it. It is not a day of the here. It’s not now. It’s at the end of things. Our hope is not ultimately that this day will get better, but that a new day is coming. A day that can and will never know the dark shadow from a cloud or eclipse. My attempts at encouragement during COVID are so laced with realities as to be discouraging. Why? Because, although God does shine light into this darkness of the now, though there are bright days here and there, though there are blessings and victories in the present, we have failed in recent Christianity to pinpoint when where our hope is realized. We have put much emphasis on a hope in this life. Things are really bad, but our hope is that something wonderful is going to come from this trial—something soon. Something in life. Ultimately, our hope is not in something now, or something before the end. It is not a hope that things won’t end. Our hope is a hope after the end. Jesus died. That was the end. Then, He resurrected. The hope comes after the end. This world will melt with fervent heat. The end. Then, there comes a new heaven and a new earth. Nature is analogous to this fact that hope comes at the end: The tree browns. There’s no hope of new growth. There’s no hope things will be reversed. There’s no hope of new buds for the year. The leaves fall off. The limbs are bare. The end of growth. The end of that season. The hope comes after the end. It looks like it’s over for the tree in December. But, come April, or May, the tree is bursting with brilliant colors of its blooms. The hope was for after the end. People put too much hope in the here and now. They can’t ignore the shadow but they think, “Things in America are getting really bad. But, there is going to be a reversal. Reason and righteousness will rule again. Leftism will be defeated. Marriage will make a comeback. Families will be nuclear again.” “Folks are jettisoning their faith in unprecedented numbers. Our youth are becoming atheistic at unbelievable speed. But, there will be a great revival and their hearts will turn back to God.” Maybe. I pray so. Thank God, there is the pendulum swing principle in politics, economy, fads, and fashions—and faith. Thank God there are revivals that reverse, recalibrate, return. Yet, we must not forget. Our hope is really about after the end not before it. I am not preaching the end of hope. Never. I’m not preaching give up hope; I am preaching we can hope to the end because our hope is after the end. Praying for brighter days ahead? Yes!!! Me too. But, ultimately, we are looking for the Brightest Day ever. The New Day. The unending Day. A day uneclipsed by death, disease, debt, debauchery, duplicity. Oh, they tell me of an unclouded day. The uneclipsed day. God is light and in Him, there is no darkness at all. With Him, there is no variableness nor shadow of turning. “In the City where the Lamb is the Light” was another oft sung song. Jesus is the uneclipsed light reflecting off the Crystal Sea, streets of gold, walls of gems, and gates of pearl. There are no shadows in that land. There are no eclipses of that day. That’s our hope. That’s the Unclouded Day--a day that come after this shadowed one.