Revelation 21:23

This verse comes from the apostle John's vision of the New Jerusalem — a picture of the eternal future where God lives directly with his people, recorded in the last book of the Bible. John describes a city unlike anything on earth: immeasurably vast, built of precious materials, with no temple because God's presence fills every corner. Here he adds that even the sun and moon are unnecessary — not because they've been destroyed, but because they've been made redundant. God's own glory provides the light. The "Lamb" is a title used throughout the book of Revelation for Jesus Christ, who was sacrificed and raised from the dead and now reigns. In this vision, Jesus himself is the lamp — not merely a source of light, but the light itself.

God, you are light, and in you there is no darkness at all. I confess I am more comfortable in the shadows than I want to admit. Give me courage to step into your light — and give me a glimpse of the world you are making, where shadows are finally finished. Amen.

Every source of light we know is borrowed. The sun burns through hydrogen. Candles consume themselves to glow. Even the screens we stare into at midnight draw power from somewhere else. We are so accustomed to secondhand light that we've never really imagined anything different. John's vision breaks that category entirely. The glory of God doesn't illuminate the New Jerusalem the way a streetlamp illuminates a road. It is the city's environment — its atmosphere, its medium. God himself is where the light comes from, and the Lamb is how it arrives. It's easy to file this verse under "future theology" and move on. But there's present weight to it. If the eternal destination is a place where there is no shadow, no dark corner, nothing to hide in — then the life of faith is a slow practice of stepping toward that now. The things we do in the dark, the versions of ourselves we keep private, the fears we haven't shown anyone — none of that will survive that city's light. Not as condemnation, but as completion. You were made for a world without shadows. What would it mean to start living in that direction today?