[278]. A MESSAGE FROM A POEM – THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
This was a poem written before I really started writing poems seriously. Part of the idea was to write a hymn and some tunes will fit its 8-8-8-8 metre.
The title, “The Light of the World” was to cover several aspects suggested to me by divine light. Stanza 1 would cover the brilliance of God’s throne. It would have to be brilliant in pure light because the Light of the World sits there. The brilliant light is not described but this verse is in light – {{Revelation 4:3 “and He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance, and there was a rainbow around the throne like an emerald in appearance.”}}
When the Lord Jesus came to earth, which is the subject of the second stanza, I said, “His dazzling face was veiled and dim.” That is when He came leaving His glory behind. No ordinary man can look on the face of God. It was hidden from Moses. Only three disciples were privileged to see it in partial form. (I don’t think the natural man could see the full brilliance). {{Matthew 17:1-3 “Six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and brought them up to a high mountain by themselves, and He was transfigured before them and HIS FACE SHONE LIKE THE SUN, and His garments became as white as light, and behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them talking with Him.”}}
The third stanza features a man and woman coming into salvation, i.e. into the light of God. The unsaved are like cockroaches that scurry around in the night and in darkness. They love night and darkness and hide lest their lives be revealed for what they are. Not so for the Christian. Forgiveness is clarity. Forgiveness is light. The Lord will touch the soul in salvation with His brilliant light but here in our mortal state, it is hidden away until we reach the very presence of God. {{Luke 24:47 “and that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”}}
Stanza 4 is the Rapture (some will call that time the Second Coming. It is the Rapture in my poem) but in the Rapture the Lord come into the air and that brilliance will be FOR US, not the world, like it was for Paul on the Damascus Road. All His own from Adam to when He comes will be in the Lord’s brilliance. {{1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 “for the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord.”}}
The final stanza is a contrast. Some stars are extremely hot – white and blue stars. Ours is only a yellow one. The most brilliant star in the galaxy is reported to be this one:- (This was in 1997 and I reckon James Webb has since found even more brilliant ones. Only God know the brightness of stars in the billions of other galaxies.)
[[[Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have identified what may be the most luminous star known – a celestial mammoth which releases up to 10 million times the power of the (our) Sun and is big enough to fill the diameter of Earth's orbit. The star unleashes as much energy in six seconds as our Sun does in one year.
The image, taken by a University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)-led team with the recently installed Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) aboard Hubble, also reveals a bright nebula, created by extremely massive stellar eruptions. The nebula is so big (four light-years) that it would nearly span the distance from the Sun to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to Earth's solar system.
The UCLA astronomers estimate that the star, called the "Pistol Star" (for the pistol shaped nebula surrounding it), is approximately 25,000 light-years from Earth near the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The Pistol Star is not visible to the eye, but is located in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, hidden behind the great dust clouds along the Milky Way.]]] (NASA Hubble Mission Team Goddard Space Flight Center)
The brightest star to the naked eye is Sirius, the dog star.
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THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
Combine the glories of the suns,
And mass in whole the blazing ones;
The black of night they’d have to own,
When set against His splendid throne.
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He came, Creator, to the earth.
The reason - to impart new birth.
No beauty then attended Him -
His dazzling face was veiled and dim.
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Forgiving light was His to give -
He freely gave that man might live.
Thus, in man’s soul His touch revealed
The brilliance, then, in time concealed.
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In purity and visage fair,
The Lord descends and cleaves the air.
In resurrection energy,
In brilliant light, He comes for me.
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Glorious burning of a star,
Projecting brilliance from afar,
That is too cold and pales away,
Contrasted with His Glory Day.
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11 July 1989 Ronald Ferguson 8-8-8-8 AABB