Streams in the Desert April 14 Daily Devotional

For the Lord himself shall descend from 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. so shall we ever be with the Lord (I Thess. 4:16, 1 7).
It was "very early in the morning" while "it was yet dark," that
Jesus rose from the dead. Not the sun, but only the morning-star
shone upon His opening tomb. The shadows had not fled, the citizens of Jerusalem had not awaked. It was still night-the hour of sleep
and darkness, when He arose. Nor did his rising break the slumbers
of the city. So shall it be "very early in the morning while it is
yet dark," and when nought but the morning-star is shining, that Christ' s body, the Church, shall arise. Like Him, His saints shall awake when nought but the morningstar is shining, that Christ's body, the Church, shall arise. Like Him, His saints shall awake when the children of the night and darkness are still sleeping
their sleep of death. In their arising they disturb no one. The
world hear's not the voice that summons them. As Jesus laid them quietly to rest each in his own still tomb, like children in the
arms of their mother, so, as quietly, as gently, shall He awake
them when the hour arrives. To them come the quickening words, "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust' (Isa 26:19). Into their
tomb the earliest ray of glory finds its way. They drink in the
first gleams of morning, while as yet the eastern clouds give but the faintest signs of the uprising. Its genial fragrance, its
soothing stillness, its bracing freshness, its sweet loneliness, its quiet purity, all so solemn and yet so full of hope, these are theirs.
Oh, the contrast between these things and the dark night through
which they have passed! Oh, the contrast between these things and the grave from which they have sprung! And as they shake off the
encumbering turf, flinging mortality aside and rising, in glorified
bodies, to meet their Lord in the air they are lighted and guided
upward, along the untrodden pathway, by the beans of that Star of

the morning, which, like the Star of Bethlehem, conducts them to the presence of the King. "Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning." --Horatius Bonar.
While the hosts cry Hosanna, from heaven descending,
With glorified saints and the angels attending, With grace on His brow, like a halo of glory,
Will Jesus receive His own.
Even so, come quickly.
A soldier said, "When I die do not sound taps over my grave, but reveille, the morning call, the summons to rise."