I am…the bright morning star (Rev. 22:16).
I’m usually up long before any sign of dawn. It’s my favorite time of day, spent engrossed in God’s Word with a well-rested mind. But one day this week sloth overcame me and I took another turn on the pillow. It was a warm night parked up against some very large boulders in Joshua Tree NP, so we had slept with the bedroom window open and the night shade only half closed to allow the most delightful zephyr to waft across our sleeping bodies. When my eyes finally opened, the first thing I saw was the black eastern horizon, a rocky ridgeline covered with silhouettes of boulders, yucca and Joshua trees below a deep fluorescent blue sky. And in that sky, just above the peak of the ridgeline, was a single sparkling star, “the bright morning star.” To use a Biblical metaphor, it was the face of Jesus, and if there is a greater blessing with which to start the day I do not know it. Revelation 22: 16, the last chapter of God’s revelation to humankind, says, “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches, I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”
When we began our RV travels we named them the Isaiah 6:3 Tour because at every point of the compass in every place on this planet we’ve been we have seen God’s creative glory manifested. And every few days the glorious scenery changes. We’re blessed beyond our worthiness.
This is our second shot at Joshua Tree NP, the tree named by the Mormons, who thought it looked like Joshua with his arms upraised. Eight days ago it was 32 degrees at dawn in a different campground in this high desert, a bit below our comfort level. This morning, after a balmy respite eating fresh-picked strawberries, oranges, tangerines and grapefruit west of the Salton Sea, we returned to Joshua Tree and 64 degree nights and desert dandelions blanketing thousands of acres of desert. From a mountaintop overlook–Key’s 
View (5,185 feet MSL, a few miles west of our campsite–we reveled in a magnificent God’s eye view of the Salton Sea and Imperial Valley all the way to Palm Springs at the base of snow-topped San Jacinta Mountain. In the middle of the valley 5,000+ feet below was a gorge–the San Andreas fault–a vivid reminder that the God who created all this breath-taking beauty can destroy it, too.
The Book of Revelation ominously prophecies of such, but three times in the final verses of its final chapter Jesus declares, I am coming soon, and the bright morning star is his reminder. Just as this morning light of prophecy foretells the bright light of a new day, with attendant new mercies for God’s elect, it also “assures them of the light of the perfect day approaching” (Matthew Henry). And right after Jesus calls himself the bright morning star he issues the most amazing invitation: The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” That is, God the Holy Spirit and the whole church, in heaven and earth, say Come and share our happiness (Henry). All of that from a single star in the predawn sky that engenders the first thought in my mind on waking–my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is coming soon. Amazing grace.
As I lay there and watched and wondered and counted my blessings, the Master Artist turned off the morning star and an invisible hand painted the silhouette of a Joshua Tree against pink clouds and powder blue sky that exploded into orange brilliance. Makes my day, my life, my eternal joy.
