Natural sunlight helps me wake up in the morning. I suspect many of you are the same way. While Circadian rhythms describe a variety of natural patterns that occur in our bodies over a 24-hour period, the most well-known pertains to our pattern of sleeping and waking. And the single largest impact on that rhythm is sunlight. So, it would seem that we were designed to function best on the basis of the sun rising in the morning to get us going for the day, and then the sun setting in the evening so that we will wind down and rest.
Last week, I could comfortably wake up at 6:00 am, as the dawn’s early light was beginning to appear. I would have enough light to take the dog for a walk without need of a flashlight, and the combination of walking while the Sun gradually appeared would leave me mentally alert by the time that I would get home and sit down with a cup of coffee. But, that was because the Sun rose an hour earlier last week than it does this week. Mind you, this isn’t because of some supernatural planetary phenomena. Rather, it is because we have this thing called Daylight Savings Time, and in the Spring, we “spring forward” and turn the clocks ahead one hour. So, this week I need to break out the flashlight when walking the dog – that is, if I overcome the stronger gravitational pull that my bed seems to have when it is totally dark outside.
I realize that we didn’t actually miss out on an hour of sunlight. All we did was tack it onto the latter part of the day, instead of the earlier part. Back when I worked in a corporate setting in a major metropolitan area, I really appreciated that I might have an extra hour of sunlight after I got out of work so that I could enjoy a small portion of the day outside of an office setting. Yet most of life wakes up when the Sun rises, regardless of what time the clock says. Our bodies were created to respond to a rhythm – a rhythm based on sunlight, and no legislative act can change that. Even if the corporate world jumps to the time on the clock, and even if society goes along with that rhythm, we do so in opposition to our created condition, out of harmony with our own bodies.
The bottom line is that we need light. Our bodies were designed in such a way as to be strengthened by the sun’s rays, giving us a healthy dose of vitamin D. But beyond our own bodies, light has similar beneficial effects on almost all life on the planet. It isn’t a stretch at all to say that light equals life as we know it. And that extends to life beyond our material existence.
Jesus declared “I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life” (John 8:12). Later, in Revelation, we learn that there will be no sun to shine in Heaven, because “the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb (Jesus) is its lamp” (Rev 21:23). Ultimately, what that means for us is that if we will choose to walk in the light of Christ in this world, we won’t have to worry about daylight savings time changes in the world to come. In the Son light, we will finally have that perfect harmony that we were created to flourish in! Peace and blessings (and light!) – Pastor Aaron