Fireworks Display

     Fireworks have been used down through the ages to celebrate festivals and special events.  Their bursts of explosions are anticipated wonders during the  Fourth of July holidays as they make their announcements, whether with a loud sonic boom, a shrill whistling noise, or a just a small sizzling sound.  After that, comes a spectacular display of lights in various shapes, rotating circles, or a blast of stars in all colors illuminating across the sky turning the darkness into a brief blast of light.

     They say the first fireworks started in the 10^th century in China, but I am not so sure about that.  You see when God decided to divide the day from the night, He said, “Let there be lights in the firmaments of the heaven.”  I was not there that day, but I can just imagine the loud explosion of activity as the stars and the moon were set into place.  The sky must have lit up with a blast of sunbeams and a glow of stars that did not just immediately fill up the sky and then fall away and disappear like the fireworks we think of today.  The stars, the moon, and the sun are there, in place, for us to celebrate and enjoy every night and day throughout the year.

     There are all kinds of fireworks God has provided that radiates across the sky and the treetops.  He set the rainbow in the sky.  As the last raindrops cease and the sky turns to blue there silently appears an array of colors just as beautiful as any fireworks display we host today.  I do not believe anyone ever ignores the rainbow when they see it span across the sky.  We always shout and point, "Look, there, over there.  It's a rainbow!"   And it is placed there to celebrate a promise God gave us many, many generations ago.  

     Then there was a special pillar of cloud that God formed, just for the Israelites, to lead them by day, and a pillar of fire, he formed, to lead them by night.  Can you imagine the expectation of seeing that fluffy, pillory white cloud and then to have it change into a fiery furnace of color as darkness dropped across the land?   

     Yet another wonder happened when the heavens opened and the Spirit of the Lord descended like a dove.  That could not have been a silent moment when Jesus was baptized.  The heavens opened and there was a voice booming out.  The sound must have been louder than the announcements of a bottle rocket in a fireworks celebration.  I can hear it now, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

     Louder still and much more impressive was the day there was darkness over all the land.  It was the ninth hour when Jesus, himself, cried out in a loud voice, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  This was when Jesus was taking all of our sins upon Himself and God saw, heard, and felt the despair.  The answer came with a loud sound.  It had to have been much louder than a fireworks show.  “The veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent. And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,”  

     This Fourth of July let us not forget the celebration of lights that God has given us throughout the ages.  There will be yet another much more beautiful celebration to come.  It will come with a loud explosion, as well.  It will come in the twinkling of an eye.  “For the Lord, himself, shall descend from the heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air:”

     I can only imagine what a fireworks display this will be as those who have rejected God watch as God’s children blast into the air to join Him in the sky!  It will be a time of despair for some but a celebration, indeed, for the believer.