New Light On The Word of The Prophets

"And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts." (2 Peter 1:19)

Ahh, spring! What a wonderful word. And what wonderful thoughts and images it conjures up: offspring, spring fever, spring break, spring rolls, Spring, Texas, spring equinox. The spring equinox is the time of year when night and day are of equal length in all parts of the earth. On March 20 or 21, in the Northern Hemisphere, as the season moves toward summer, a dying winter passes the dying summer of the Southern Hemisphere and, for a brief moment, they are both in the same place. The length of night, the time of darkness, is equal all over the world. From the first day of spring on, the time of light is longer than the time of darkness; and the time of darkness continues to decrease as the time of light continues to increase, and continues that way until the summer solstice.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 announces, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven." Each season - spring, summer, autumn, and winter - last about three months and brings changes in temperature, weather, and the length of day and night. The seasons keep changing because the tilt of the earth's axis never changes while the earth circles in an oval pattern around the sun. Similarly, the tilt of our axis (our bent toward darkness) also never changes and, as we circle around the Son, we, too, go through seasons, the seasons of life. When we are close to Him there is warmth and light, and when we are far away, there is only cold, dark, barren nothingness.

Spring represents "a time to be born." There is just outside my patio door a beautiful brown dove nesting in the apex of my amply jasmined arbor. She does not move. I have watched her sitting there on her eggs through the heat of the day, the dark of night, and, just yesterday, through a driving rain storm. She didn't move. She sat there statuesque, refusing to deny her soon-to-be-born offspring the protection of her warm body. When those little doves are birthed into this world of hardship and danger, they will stay right in their mother's nest, right under her wing, right where she can protect them until they are mature enough to fly on their own.

We could all learn a lesson from those doves. Our Lord Jesus offers that same kind of shelter and protection: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" (Luke 13:34, 35)

Spring is also the time of year that our Father chose to offer up His Son as atonement for our sin. The darkness of our sinful lives is overcome by His death and His resurrection empowers us with new birth. Our winter passes into spring! Those of us who accept His protection are afforded love, joy, peace, and, under His graceful wings, protection from the Evil One. We are delivered as newborn babes from the power of sin and Satan. New birth! New life! The light of His glorious life made anew in us shines on the words of the prophets in our hearts and they are made more certain to us. We no longer kill the prophets and stone those who are sent but we live and love in the light of our new life. If we are as smart as those little doves, we will stay under the wings of protections of The Christ, offered only to those who are willing, those who are His.