Watching Daylight Fade: Days, Seasons, and the End of Time

Published in Christian Renewal magazine, 11 July 2007

It's approaching 10 p.m. on the southern coast of England, and the sky is not yet dark. It begins to get light before 4:30 a.m. this time of year and doesn't get completely dark until about 10 p.m. These long days more than make up for the darkest days of winter, in which daylight doesn't begin to show its face until just before 8 a.m. and the sky is black by 4 p.m. Readers in Canada might find such times commonplace, but they are a bit strange to someone like myself, who grew up with the more regular days of the subtropics.

The winter days have their own appeal. They provide that cozy warmth that comes from being all bundled up, and they make you want to pause in the dark evenings and gaze at the stars for a while before going inside for a nice hot drink.

But the summer days are lovely in an entirely different way. Daylight replaces darkness. Walking outside in the late daylight and the soft, pleasant, slightly cool evening air replaces the need for bundling up and going inside. Lighter chilled drinks, such as elderflower cordial, summer fruits squash, and chilled white wine replace heavier refreshments like thick hot chocolate, red wine, dark ales, and tea.

Even the food is different: traditional British winter food is heavy, hearty, and thick with gravy. There are always lots of meats, sauces, and various kinds of potatoes. It's the kind of food, my wife says, that makes empire building possible. The typical winter desserts are perhaps the best examples: thick, hot puddings covered in custard. They’re almost a meal to themselves. One tends to enjoy such food in a dimly lit, intimate setting - perhaps a small, traditional pub, huddled around a table with friends, laughing heartily about hearty things. Winter food tends toward sleepiness and is very conducive to the proverbial long winter's nap.

But traditional British summer food is lighter, cooler, and very suitable for picnics. It would be a downright shame to eat the typical salads, slaws, relishes, and spreads huddled around anything at all - they should be eaten outside, in a garden, reclined in the grass, or relaxed around a table in the open air, laughing more lightly about lighter things. Summer food tends toward activity and adventure - maybe a little relaxation after eating, but always a walk or a game afterward. The desserts tend to include fresh fruit and one or another of the finest creams in the world.

The cycle of the seasons is stunning, and there is perhaps no better place to experience it than in Sussex, England. And to think that God created the earth's annual cycle to reflect his story for the world: The earth was created beautiful, a perfect summer garden on a perfect summer day, when the days seem to last forever and life itself seems to be carefree. Then comes the fall: autumn, when green turns to brown and the appearance of life changes into the appearance of death. The animals migrate away, and at autumn's end lies winter. Winter is the time of great darkness, when most living things either disappear or appear dead.

But nothing in all the world is more glorious and beautiful than seeing those first few buds of spring or those wildflowers that take those first few warm days as their cue to start growing. Such things literally delight one's soul - I will never look at daffodils or a budding tree the same way again after experiencing spring in England. Spring is a time of resurrection, and it leads to a full-blown, all-out renewal of summer in all its light and life.

This is why evergreens have always been so valued: they seem to cheat the winter by residing in perpetual summer, regardless of their external circumstances. In fact, that is why pines began to be used as Christmas trees.

This is why the tropics appeal to so many. Growing up in Florida, I am very familiar with how many 'snowbirds' fly south for the winter, and now that I live in England, I know how many northern Europeans vacation to the Mediterranean coast and other warmer climates, especially Spain. We recently joined the migration, heading to a beach near Barcelona for a week. There was a very strong Dutch and German presence in our area, and we noticed how all the cafés near our hotel wrote their menus in several northern European languages in addition to Castilian and the local Catalan.

The tropics appeal because they are perpetual summer: a garden of greenery and life all year long. Those who holiday there do so to cheat winter themselves, and many choose to retire to such a paradise of year-round life and light.

The most glorious thing of all is that the true paradise, of which summer is only a pale reflection, is offered in Jesus. One of these days the cycle will be broken: the pattern of life will stop reflecting the seasons' constant cycle from garden to graveyard and back and the history of this world will reach its conclusion. To those who reject the salvation offered to them in Jesus, the conclusion will be in the pattern of autumn, a fall that leads to perpetual winter. But for those who are in Christ, their pattern is the one of spring: a redemption from the darkness and coldness of death that ends in an eternal summer.

May the cycles of the days and seasons remind us that that day is coming, and may that reminder always lead us to both repentance and encouragement.

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

“The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who is thirsty come . . . He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!”