Let Your Light Shine
Day 273 – 30 September
No Need of the Moon
“And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it” (Revelation 21:23–24, ESV)
The Bell That Covered the Fires
At eight o’clock every evening, a bell rings out from St Peter’s Church in Sandwich, Kent, keeping an ancient custom that still continues. It is the curfew bell, and its name carries the old instruction inside it. Curfew came into English through Anglo-French from the Old French cuevrefeu, “cover fire”, the evening signal telling every household to cover its hearth and settle for the night, largely to stop fires breaking out in the dark (Etymonline).
In the dark, then, every hearth in the town went under a lid. Sandwich once knew the same bell as the Pig Bell, since it also marked the hour when animals could be turned out into the street, and it still rings over a world that has nights to get through. John’s final vision describes a city that needs no curfew at all, whose gates are never shut and where there is no night (Revelation 21:25).
Nations Walking to a Rising
No night was the end of a story Isaiah began. Three verses into his great chapter of light, the prophet saw the world on the move: “And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising” (Isaiah 60:3, ESV). The verb behind “come” is halakh (to walk, to go), the walking verb that ran beneath this month’s fourth week, so the nations in Isaiah’s line walk towards Zion’s light.
Zion’s light has a rising, and the word for it is zerach (a rising of light, a dawning). It is a noun formed from zarach (to rise, used of the sun), and the Hebrew Bible uses it only here (Brown, Driver and Briggs; Strong’s 2225). On Monday the verb zarach (has risen) told how the LORD’s glory came up over Zion like the morning; on this last day of the month its noun names what the kings see from far off, a city catching the dawn.
The dawn the kings saw was never Zion’s own. The chapter had already said that the LORD would arise upon her and His glory would be seen upon her (Isaiah 60:2), so the brightness that drew the nations was His light shining on His people, the way the first sun lights a hillside town.
No Need of the Moon
A hillside town catching the dawn is where Isaiah’s hope came to rest, and John saw how far that hope reached. Revelation 21 takes up Isaiah 60 again and again: nations walking by the city’s light, kings carrying their glory in, gates left open day after day (Revelation 21:24–26; Isaiah 60:3, 11). John also drew on Isaiah 60:19, where the prophet had promised that neither sun nor moon would be needed, “but the LORD will be your everlasting light” (ESV). Ellicott, the Pulpit Commentary and the Expositor’s Greek Testament all trace John’s image back to that verse.
That verse brings this month full circle. On its first morning these pages looked at the moon, a body that makes none of its own light yet rules the night with light borrowed from the sun, and let it carry the truth of Jesus’ words “Ye are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14, KJV): every believer’s light is received before it is ever given. On the month’s last morning the moon has been stood down. The city in John’s vision “has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Revelation 21:23, ESV).
The Lamb is the city’s lamp, and the Greek word is lychnos (lamp), the ordinary lamp of a household, which Vincent preferred to render plainly as “lamp” (Vincent; Cambridge Bible). The one who was slain now lights a whole city. By that light “will the nations walk” (Revelation 21:24, ESV), and John’s verb is peripatēsousin (they will walk about), from the same peripateō (to walk about) that opened this month’s walking week.
Walking by His light, with nothing borrowed and nothing reflected, is where every lesser light was heading. The moon never had to apologise for borrowing; it did its work faithfully until the sun came up. Every believer’s light this month has been like that, small and received and faithful, and in the end it will be gathered into the glory it was always reflecting.
Thirty Mornings, One City
Reflecting back over thirty mornings, each week of the month turns out to have been a glimpse of this city. The first week said we are light because the Light gave us His own; here the Source shines in person. The second lifted the basket off the lamp; here no lid will ever be needed, and no bell will ring for covering the fire. The third held up beautiful works; here the glory and honour of the nations are carried in through open gates (Revelation 21:26). The fourth walked in the light; here whole nations walk by it. These last three days have heard Isaiah say arise and shine; here the sun of that promise will never go down (Isaiah 60:20).
A Fire Left Uncovered
Going down is still part of our days, though, and the bell in Sandwich will ring again at eight tonight. Until the city comes, our lights are small and borrowed, and some evenings they feel more covered than lit. Their smallness is no embarrassment, because every one of them is an early gleam of a city where the light will never be covered again.
Again tomorrow a new month begins, and the best way to cross into it is with one light deliberately left uncovered. Pick the lesson from September that caught you hardest, whether the next step lit by the lamp, the secret kindness, the grumble left unsaid or the tap on a friend’s window, and carry that single practice into October. Somebody on your road will walk more surely by it, the way the nations in John’s vision walk by the city’s light.
Declaration
September is ending, and the light I carried through it comes with me into October. I know where that light is heading: to a city whose gates stand open, where no bell rings to cover the fire and the moon is no longer needed. Until I walk its streets, I will keep my small flame uncovered, walk by the light I have been given, and leave the road a little brighter for whoever comes behind me. The evening bell still rings in this world, and one day it will ring for the last time.
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