Two important lessons may be learned from this subject:
I. All Christians should seek to be sons of the morning. As lamps do not talk, but shine, so should religion shine forth in beneficent and useful lives.
II. We should be striving to make others share in the blessed privileges which we ourselves enjoy. Christians may be saying, both by word and by example, to all with whom they come in contact, "We are travelling eastward to the land of the morning." A new glory is thrown round the Christian character while seeking to make known to others the perfections of God's love and mercy. In order that we may each shine in our measure, we must learn to turn ourselves often towards Him from whom our light is derived.
J. N. Norton, Golden Truths,p. 59.
When Christ rose from the grave, it was not, properly speaking, the Church's sunrise: that has not yet taken place; that will be when He comes again, in the blaze of His glory one universal glow, like the morning spread upon the mountains. But what rose was that beautiful "star" which harbingers the sunrise, making the early dawn and telling us that the day is coming: its pledge and earnest. Mark the differences. When Christ came out of His grave, it was "not with observation." It was silent and unnoticed. When He shall come again in His kingdom, it will be with the archangel's trump, visible and refulgent, even "as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven," even as "the morning star" steals upon the night, but the sun rises in his full-orbed splendour. And when Christ walked this earth after His resurrection, it was light, sweet light; but it was partial light, light to a few, light shrouded, light mingled with the darkness. But when He returns it will be a radiant world: "The Lamb will be the Light thereof;" just as "the morning star" shines in twilight, but when the sun comes it is all a sea of brightness. And the risen Christ was to set again; He appeared for a little while, and then He passed away with the light of the Spirit, which shone we have His own authority for saying it which shone more brightly than His own. But when He comes back again the light of His presence will never go out; like as "the morning star" sheds its ray for a little space, but the orb of day rolls on in his might, and "rejoices as a giant to run his course." And Christ's mission after He rose was chiefly to speak of the things of the kingdom, to tell of another breaking of love and joy upon this earth, the pioneer to a happier day, again true to the parable of nature, for the "morning star" seems made for little else but to proclaim that the day is coming to us.
I. Now, see it thus in your heart, if "the Lord is risen upon you." The light is there. And there is a distinct, clear beam. But as yet the chief effect of that is twofold: it makes the darkness of your heart more perceptible and more felt, and your desires are being sent on by it more longingly for a day which it testifies to you to be very near. Therefore avoid two mistakes. Do not think that you are not risen, or rather that Christ is not risen in you, because there is much surrounding darkness in your soul, and you feel that darkness deeper and drearier than you ever felt it before. That sense of darkness is an index of "the morning star." Without "the star" you would scarcely know that it was dark. Only, it shows that it is not yet day, not that "perfect day" for which we look. On the other hand, do not expect to live a resurrection-day as if it were an ascension-day. We are now living a resurrection-life, as many of us as are indeed baptised into the Lord Jesus Christ; and every Easter comes to remind us of our resurrection-life, and every Easter we should get a little higher than before. A believer's life is full of resurrections. But persons sometimes speak of resurrection-life as if it were to be a life of confidence and no fear, all praise and no prayer; but it is just because it is resurrection-life that you are to walk humbly, watchfully, expectingly. Resurrection-life is spiritual, but it is not glorified, just as our Lord in "the forty days" was spiritual, but not glorified till He ascended into the heavens. You are under "the bright and morning star," but you have not yet the sun.
II. And here is the solution of the secret of our earth in its present state. There is the light of the truth in this world, light just enough to show that more light is wanted, and what light can be, and what light will be. But the light of truth is straggling in the best; sometimes it seems nothing to cope with the thickness of the error and the wickedness which are about on every side. It can scarcely penetrate it. Nevertheless the light shows God's presence and God's faithfulness; and it keeps faith and hope alive, for it is the interval of the reign of the "morning star" before the sun comes. "But," you say, "is this all that Christ is to His Church now: only a star?" Yes, by comparison with what He will be. But, remember, "the morning star" makes the daybreak sure; and "the morning star" is lovely and brilliant compared to the midnight that would be without it: and nobody can tell what the state of this world would be without the direct and indirect rays of the Lord Jesus Christ.
III. But let me reduce the image to one or two practical instructions. Christ gradually develops. The believer's light gradually but certainly increases. It was not a sun, but a "star," that shone on Bethlehem; and the sun itself pales and loses itself in the new Jerusalem, before that brightness where "the Lamb is the Light thereof." It is "the morning star." Every lesson of Easter Day is a lesson of earliness. The women were early; the angels were early; Christ was early. "The morning star" is early. To a Christian view every new morning, as it springs out of night, is a little resurrection. Let it find you early, since it is the characteristic of the things that are high that they are early. Resurrection and earliness go together. They say that in nature all vegetation springs the fastest and makes its largest shoots in the very early mornings. And it is a fact as certain in grace as it is in nature that in due time the "morning star" becomes the "evening star," and he who in his youth has had the "morning star" will find it his "evening star" in his age and death. And life ought to be a joyous thing. True, it is in the midst of things that are within and without still steeped in sorrow; but the path of religion is a line of light, which falls true athwart the darkness; and every Christian walking there, catching something of the brightness of "the morning star," is to be himself in this world a reflection to break the gloom and speak for God. He stands in the track of the promises; and he should be a man radiant in his spirit. Nevertheless, however many your joys may be, the best of this world is, after all, twilight. Some of us know it too well. The clouds that wrap us in are still so black, the sin within, the trials and perplexities around us, our own and others' griefs. But if Jesus has risen in your soul, I tell you, by that faint streak of light, however faint, it is morning, real morning, a morning that will never quite darken over again. There are, and there will be, shadows till He comes; but, by the token of that faint light, "the night is far spent, and the day is at hand."
J. Vaughan, Sermons,9th series, p. 165.
The book of Revelation has a peculiar charm which all readers of Scripture more or less feel. It attracts the child by its shifting scenes, its bright pictures, its grand, mysterious glimpses of the future. It satisfies the man of more mature understanding and taste with the lofty truth and harmony that reigns all through its mighty world of symbols and visions a world which exhausts the stores of the Old Testament, and then imagines new. In more senses than one this book is the "revelation of Jesus Christ." No part of the Bible so fully unfolds the glories of His reign, adorns Him with such a profusion of titles, or pours out such a tide of love and adoration on His person. The style is transfigured, like the person, adding to the depth and tenderness of the Gospel the lofty sweep and rich colouring of the prophets. The whole book is, as it were, linked together by the one grand figure of the first of our texts, taken from the close: "I am the bright and morning star," as it returns upon its beginning: "And I will give him the bright and morning star."
I. Christ is to His people the morning star of time, and will be to them the morning star of eternity, because His light shines after darkness. Every sinner to whom Christ has not appeared walks in darkness. All Christians alike have come out of darkness, and come out of it at the signal of Christ's rising. All trace the grand transition to His appearing in their day, and with a full and swelling heart take up the same words of thanksgiving: "Through the tender mercy of our God, the dayspring from on high hath visited us."
II. Christ is to His people the morning star of time, and will be to them the morning star of eternity, because His light transcends all comparison. "In all things He hath the preeminence." Christ is pre-eminent (1) in His titles; (2) in His offices; (3) in His history. (4) What He is to His people, He is alone.
III. Christ is the morning star of time, and will be the morning star of eternity, because His light ushers in perpetual day. Christ is not compared to the evening star, though it be in itself as bright as that of the morning, and indeed the same, because in that case the associations would be too gloomy, and the victory would seem to remain for a time on the side of darkness. With Christ as the morning star, the victory is decided from the first, and Night can never resume her ancient empire. The dawn may be overcast, but the day still proceeds.
J. Cairns, Christ the Morning Star, and Other Sermons,p. 1.