This article is part of our Advent series “The Dawning of the King.” We have also created a PDF with hymns and daily Scripture readings to use as a guide, whether individually or with your family or small group.
Have you ever wondered why God created light? Surely he could’ve made the world in a hundred other ways. When infinite imagination pairs with ex nihilo creation, the possibilities are endless. So, why did God choose to fill this world with light?
Perhaps even more curious, why did God connect light so closely with the sun? He could’ve taken a different route, invented another kind of cosmic candle. Why did God instill the sun, with its endless rhythm of rising and setting, as sovereign of the day? Why does he command the daystar every morning, “Do it again,” with seemingly inexhaustible enthusiasm?
God answers each of those questions the same way: for Christ. He made light and married it to a dying and rising sun to help us desire and delight in the true Son. As C.S. Lewis would say, God ordains daily dawn to give us bearings on the Bright Blur of his glory. Through created things, the Son shines brighter and becomes less blurry. Light and sun exist for Christ (Colossians 1:16).
In short, the sunrise teaches us about the Sonrise that we confess at Advent: Christ has come. Christ will come again.
The King Dawned
In one of the most beautiful prophecies in Scripture, Isaiah frames Christ’s first coming as a kind of cosmic dawn:
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone. (Isaiah 9:2)
Notice that the Son rose over a people lost in the shadowlands. Darkness, of course, is a metaphor, one that the Bible often connects with evil, sin, and death. In Isaiah’s immediate context, God’s people had forsaken him and run to a human king for security (Isaiah 8:6). They rejected God’s word (verse 20). They raged against their Maker (verse 21). They “have no dawn”; they are dwellers in darkness — because they turned their backs on God as the only source of life and joy and light. Spiritual darkness is a lack of delight in God.
This same darkness has haunted us since the garden — a dusk as old as Eden. God made us to be bright sons, but we fell under sin’s dim reign. From Adam on, all sit in a lightless prison of our own making (Isaiah 42:7). We not only practiced the unfruitful works of darkness; we were darkness (Ephesians 5:8–11).
But then the King dawned on us. As Isaiah says, a son was given, born under singing stars (Isaiah 9:6). On that ancient Christmas morn, the Sonrise broke, throwing open heaven’s doors. He came to torch the night, to right all wrong, and by his rising to banish death. He came to bring us into his bright joy.
Like the psalmists, Isaiah connects joy with dawn. When the Son rises, he kindles the gladness of his people (verse 3). Isaiah grounds that joy in a threefold for. For he will shatter our slavery (verse 4). For he will end our war (verse 5). For he will dawn as a forever-king (verses 6–7). “God will place Christ on his royal throne,” John Calvin says, “that under him supreme and everlasting happiness may be enjoyed” (Commentary on Isaiah, 306).
All this and more, Christ fulfilled at his first coming — in part. However, we still look forward to the permanent Sonrise to come.
The King Will Dawn
The sun rose yesterday. The sun will rise tomorrow. The sun tells us about Jesus. Our King has dawned. Our King will dawn again.
Advent teaches us to cultivate morning-longing. It is a season of groaning and gladness — gladness that Christ has come and groaning for Christ to come again. Advent is an in-between time, when we wait with desire for the second coming while we remember with delight the first.
Need I remind you that we still dwell in a land of darkness? Christ defeated death, yes, but death still stalks us. The Lion of Judah defanged Satan, but Satan still prowls. Our guilt is gone, but sin still inhabits the shadowy places within us. So, we wait, wait, and wait, with dusk-dimmed eyes but hearts hoping for the Sonrise to come.
When it comes — when he comes — we will not need sun or moon. These are but dim glimmers of the true Light of the World. The Lamb will be our eternal lamp. When Morning comes, “your sun shall no more go down . . . for the Lord will be your everlasting light” (Isaiah 60:20). The Daystar will rise so full of glory that he will dazzle the watching world. We will stare into the Son and marvel (2 Thessalonians 1:10). Dawn will make all things new.
The King Dawns
Christ has come. Christ will come again. But that is not the whole story. The relentless rhythm of the sunrise shows us that Christ comes. The King dawns. He shines on us daily; we live in his light. He has not left us as orphans, wandering aimlessly through a millennia-long twilight. We are even now “children of the day” (1 Thessalonians 5:5).
To change the metaphor slightly, when a Son was given, dawn began to crest the horizon. “The true light . . . was coming into the world” (John 1:9). One day, he will fully rise and usher in eternal noon. We will see the child who was born, and our gladness will be full. We will sun ourselves in the full light of the Morning Star. But until that day, we can still savor the glory of Christ as he shines in his word and his world by his Spirit. Morning is already–not yet.
This Advent at Desiring God, we will bask in the Son’s glory by exploring the four titles Isaiah crowns Jesus with: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Each of these bright beams meets one of our deepest longings, illuminates our darkness, and helps us anticipate the dawning of the forever-king.
Join us this month as we learn to long for the Light. Come and see the Sonrise!
Desiring God