Arise, shine
Dawn after the dark night
After the long darkness, Isaiah sounds the call of the dawn: Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. The night that seemed it would never end gives way, as every night must, to morning — and the light that breaks is not merely the return of ordinary day but the glory of God himself, risen upon the one who waited through the dark.
This is the promised end of the dark night, and it is worth lingering on as this stage closes. The dark night was never meant to be permanent; it was a passage, doing its deep and necessary work, and then giving way to dawn. The God who hid himself to purify the soul returns, and the soul that learned to love him in the darkness now sees his glory rise. For those who feared his name in the night, the prophet promises, the sun of righteousness will arise with healing in its wings.
And notice what the dark night accomplished. The soul that went into the valley clutching its consolations comes out loving God for himself; the self that relied on its own strength has been broken and remade; what was impure has been refined to gold. The darkness was, all along, doing the deep work of the death of self — and that is precisely where the journey now turns. The dawn has come, and with it a soul more truly alive, because something in it has died. Arise, shine; your light has come.
“Arise, shine; for your light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen on you.”
— Isaiah — Isaiah 60:1 (WEB)
Rise into the dawn after the dark night — letting the darkness's deep work, the death of the false and self-reliant self, give way to a truer life in the risen light of God.
“To you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in its wings.”
We fear the dark night is permanent, when it was always a passage doing necessary work before giving way to dawn. The interior work is to trust that the God who hid himself to purify returns with healing, and to recognize what the darkness accomplished — weaning the soul off consolations, breaking self-reliance, refining away impurity — so that the night's deepest work is seen as a kind of death that opens the doorway to deeper life.
As this stage closes, look back over your dark seasons and name the work the darkness did — what was purified, broken, or deepened — and look forward to the dawn, letting the death of the false self that the night began lead you into the deeper life ahead.
Despair wants the dark night to feel permanent and pointless, so you give out just before the dawn and miss the deep work the darkness was doing all along. But the night was accomplishing a death — of the false, self-reliant, consolation-dependent self — and the soul that lets that death give way to life rises refined, loving God for himself and shining with a glory the darkness only prepared it to bear.
The dark night, for all its agony, was never the destination; it was a passage with an end. As this stage closes, Isaiah's dawn breaks: Arise, shine, for your light has come. The God who hid himself to purify returns, his glory rising upon the soul that waited through the night, and for those who feared his name in the dark, the sun of righteousness rises with healing in its wings.
And the darkness did real work. The soul that went into the valley clutching its consolations comes out loving God for himself; the self-reliance that needed breaking has been broken; the impurities have been refined away. The dark night was, all along, accomplishing a kind of death — the death of the false, self-reliant, consolation-dependent self. And that death is the doorway to deeper life, which is exactly where the journey turns next. The dawn has come; arise and shine, more truly alive because something in you has died.
- Have I feared the dark night was permanent and pointless?
- What deep work did the darkness do in me — purifying, breaking, deepening?
- Can I let the death of the false self give way to a truer life in the dawn?
Lord, the dark night felt endless, but you were purifying me all along, and now the dawn breaks. Arise upon me with healing in your wings. Let the death the darkness worked in me give way to deeper life, and help me rise and shine in your risen light. Amen.