The Night Watch

“May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

The moon, full and lustrous, glides through the sky - a queen’s ship sailing proudly, quietly through the sea of night. Into the familiar unknown of a new year and a new dawn. Her light illuminates the mountains as they lie sleeping in their winter white sheets, smooth and resting. Does nature know of time? Of how well it keeps the hourglass for all of us, even as we plea for it to slow…to wait? Do mountains and bears and does wish for the moon to falter, to linger over their moments and extend their hours?

Perhaps.

Or maybe they lie content, resting, present in this: their simple, purposeful lives.

The moon, so startlingly bright, transforms this night into something mysterious…a night wherein the darkness cannot fully descend and encompass…a night shimmering with silver, tingling with an otherworldly sheen. If only I could bottle it, stock the cupboard of my soul with moonlit mason jars for when life feels like an endless night or a forest filled with the chill of fog.

I began this year with a nervous hope, timidly opening the door, then stepping through. It must be done after all—the crossing of the threshold. I didn’t even want to look back too hard at the room I was leaving…each day, each year has enough trouble of its own, and I needed focus and strength to make this step into yet another unknown. To my dismay, the new room, the new year, seemed dark.

God, I just need some light.

Throughout this past advent season I found myself wondering what it must have been like to be one of the wisemen on their journey to find Jesus—the long-awaited Messiah of a people not their own—led by something as strange, wonderful, and beautiful as a star.

A star that shone in the night.

In the darkness.

Daring to illuminate the way to the Savior of the world.

Only in the night could they see it, study it, and follow its piercing light.

I imagine it must have been brilliant, sparkling, magnetic. But maybe it was subtler…maybe it was made of the soft, pervasive, and comforting glow of a full moon upon white-capped mountaintops. Maybe, they had to pay close, constant attention…and trust that the light would not diminish but faithfully lead the way to the greatest dawn of all—to the Light of the World.

For me personally, this season has felt dark. I find myself wondering if the morning will come, wondering where I will find the strength and wisdom to stumble my way through the night. And yet, the moon grows round, filled with light—and right on schedule. Not a moment late, nor early. In a few short hours the sun will rise. Beaming and brave, every day victorious.

And so it is, has been, and will be with me.

This season is just that…a season. A night that will inevitably succumb to the glory of light. I am reminded by the God-given gift of this soft, full moon that I belong to the light. To THE Light. That I am forever illumined, surrounded, and filled with a light that cannot be quenched. And like the wisemen, following the Star of David, the light shines most brightly in the night. How strange that such a journey—a journey whose purpose it was to glorify God and enjoy Him forever—should be experienced and accomplished through faithful steps along the road of darkness. How faithfully they were led. How faithfully are we, ourselves, led by Christ.

With each passing year, I grow more aware of my own mortality, of the ache and desperation of this world. The night…it seems…grows darker. We consider time a thief and pain an inescapable hunter. We buck against the fallenness of this world, against the frailty of our bodies, against the march of time because we simply weren’t made to be mortal. We were made, our very souls formed, for immortality. Not an immortality spent in some self-absorbed ambition…but one lived in communion with our very God, in worship of Him who desired us, imagined us, breathed us into being, and saved us from our very selves with the sacrifice of His own body. We were made for a life lived within eternal light.

And while we must journey through these night watches of our mortal earth, mortal bodies, and mortal minds…the Star we follow is faithful to guide us home. A home free of pain, sorrow, grief, and darkness. A home where we will forever dwell in the brilliance of love, the light of peace, and of hope fulfilled.

May we journey faithfully into this year, this season and chapter. May we hold fast to what is true—that we have been claimed by Victory, by Light inextinguishable. May we be steadfast in the night watches of this life as we await the coming dawn.

“We were not made for mortality but for immortality,” - Douglas Kaine McKelvey