A LONG NIGHT’S JOURNEY INTO DAY Numbers 9:15-23
When our children were small, our family would take trips back home to Kentucky. We discovered that a six hundred mile journey was better if we traveled at night. We would pack our bags, make a big thermos of coffee for me, and set out in the evening, not long after dinner. There were several advantages – not so many eighteen-wheelers to battle; cooler temperatures; and, best of all, the children would soon get too sleepy to argue and fight! Despite the fatigue of driving all night, we found that the nighttime journey worked best for us.
But the best part of the nighttime journey would come somewhere in the green hills and blue grass of central Kentucky. The sun would begin to rise, the mares and their foals on the horse farms would be visible through the mist. We knew that as the morning was coming, we were getting close to home. Our spirits would soar: for morning was breaking, the day was dawning, and we were close to home. Always the best part of a long night’s journey is the gift of a new day at home.
More than thirty centuries ago, the people of Israel set out on a long journey. With Moses as their leader, they fled the bondage of Egypt and went out into the desert. It was not long before their journey became very, very difficult. Night came, and there was no place to sleep except under the stars. Morning came, and there was no breakfast except for tasteless slabs of unleavened bread. Night and day, evening and morning, day after day, week after relentless week, the journey seemed an endless torture, with no future and no possibilities. They murmured and complained, “Why did we come out into the wilderness to die? It would have been better to have stayed in Egypt and to have suffered bondage; at least we were fed. At least we were housed. At least we had our necessities.”
But Moses prayed and God provided. Moses prayed and God gave meat and manna, water and shelter. God gave the necessities for the journey. And God gave something else as well. God gave His presence. God gave His blessed assuring presence.
And what an astounding form that presence took – a cloud by day and a fire by night. Day and night, the presence of God, visible, almost touchable. Different at night than in the daylight, but there, just the same. And the most remarkable thing of all – that this presence, this hovering, sheltering presence, directed the movements of the people toward their promised home. The Scripture tells us that when the cloud remained, as often it would, the people stayed in their camp, obedient. It might be two days, or a month, or a longer time. If the cloud of the presence did not move, then Israel did not move. But when the cloud lifted and moved, Israel knew that God was taking them forward, another step on the way into the land of promise. It was a long journey, with many starts and stops. But the people of God found that the presence never left, whether they were encamped or whether they were traveling. The presence never left, from evening until morning. The presence of God led them on a journey into the day, a journey toward home.
As we sang a few moments ago, “Great is Thy faithfulness .. Thy own dear presence to cheer and guide; strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, blessings all mine, and ten thousand beside.”
When the cloud lifted, Israel’s spirits would soar: for morning was breaking, the day was dawning, and they were closer to home. Always, the best part of a long night’s journey is the gift of a new day at home.
For Wadell Wilkins, the long night’s journey began on a stormy January evening. Several of us in this room remember it well. Andre and Diana were part of our church’s marriage enrichment program for young couples. That group was meeting, despite a snowstorm beginning and treacherous roads. We got word from Andre that something serious was happening with his father at the hospital, and so, as soon as we could wrap up the meeting and let everyone get safely home, I made my way to Sibley, there to find this family gathered. We were afraid that that stormy night would be Wadell’s last night. But it was not. It was the beginning of a journey – a long nighttime journey. And as the hours stretched into days, the days into months, and the months into years, it seemed as though the long night’s journey would never end.
But you kept faith. You believed. You saw the hovering presence of the Lord through all those months. Where some must have said that it was all over, you believed that God was not yet finished with Wadell. You believed that God had a purpose to accomplish in him. And so you waited; though surely your patience was tried, though certainly there were many trying moments for you, you waited. You believed that the cloud that hung over his bed was not a storm cloud, but the cloud of the presence of the Lord. And you waited.
What began months ago on a stormy night ended Wednesday of this week, on another stormy day and night. The humidity and the fog had been horrible, the winds had lashed, the rain had fallen, but the clouds did move on. And when Thursday morning arrived, fresh and clean, cool and glorious, it seemed as though all nature rejoiced with you that the long and stormy night’s journey was over, the traveler at home.
I saw your spirits soar: your morning was breaking, your day had dawned, for Wadell was at home. Always, always, the best part of a long night’s journey is the gift of a new day at home.
A number of years ago, the playwright Eugene O’Neill wrote a tragic, tortured play about his own family. He called it, “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” In this play, O’Neill peeled back the layers of secrecy and conflict with which the Tyrone brothers and their sister and their parents had lived all their lives. “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night” tells us of a family with much to live for, many talents, great abilities – but it was all destroyed in faithless failure, debilitating selfishness, and pointless conflict. O’Neill’s family history is well titled, “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” At the end of their day of opportunity was night; at the end of their journey, no home, no hope, no power, no life. Indeed, a long day’s journey into night.
But thanks be to God, in Jesus Christ, you have turned this around. Thanks be to God, by the redeeming power of Christ, you have consigned to the ash heap the long day’s journey into night, and you have turned it around into a long night’s journey into day. Who else but Jessie Wilkins would come to church less than thirty hours after her husband’s near death, trudging through an immense snow, to teach the only Sunday School class that we could offer that day? Only sixteen people made it to church, but Jessie Wilkins was one of the sixteen, and teaching as well. A long night’s journey was just beginning, but already you saw the cloud of the presence, and you would not move until the cloud moved. Thanks be to God, the day has arrived. A long night’s journey into day!
Thanks be to God, in Jesus Christ, this family has turned it all around. You have not been destroyed by this long night, but you have turned it into day. Week after week we have watched as Wadell’s and Jessie’s children stayed and prayed, visited the hospital and the nursing home. You have been there for their father, your have been there for one another. You have moved on with your lives, as you must, but you have kept the faith, you have fought the good fight, and you have helped your father finish the course. Even when new life came into this family, you remembered Grandpa and did not fail to believe that a loving God would give him the good news. Over against the playwright’s tortured, broken, self-destructive Tyrone family, plodding a long day’s journey into night, the Wilkins family found one another, embraced one another, and in your father’s long ordeal discovered that in Jesus Christ it can all be turned around, a long night’s journey into day.
So today, our spirits soar with yours: morning has broken, the day has dawned, and Wadell is at home. Always, the best part of a long night’s journey is, indeed, the gift of a new day at home.
No night lasts forever. Do not forget that “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
No night lasts forever. The seer of Revelation reports, “ … they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple … and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
No night lasts forever. Not when you get home. For “the city [of our home] has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.…Its gates will never be shut by day--and there will be no night there.” No night there, only day.
Praise God, the long night’s journey has turned into day. Our spirits soar with yours:
“Morning has broken like the first morning .. praise for the singing, praise for the morning, praise for life springing fresh from the Word.”
This day has dawned, and Wadell is at home. Always, today and always, the best part of a long night’s journey is, truly, the gift of a new day at home.
