SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
There are lines in the carol ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’, that you’ve probably sung many, many times:
‘Hail the Son of Righteousness, Life and Light to all He brings, Risen with healing in His wings’.
The scripture it comes from is Malachi 4 : 2, and it is not the ‘Son’ but the ‘Sun’ of righteousness. It makes more sense when you realise that ‘wings’ can also be translated as ‘rays’. The picture is of a bright shining sun, whose rays are full of healing life. Sunlight is necessary for all life and growth. As the sun rises in the morning it brings light and warm. In the same way, Jesus the Sun comes, and His rising brings – light that dispels darkness, warmth, healing. He brings life itself to all who will fall under His rays.
JEHOVAH TSIDKENU
In 2 Samuel 23: 4, David speaks of a just ruler to come, with ‘light like the morning sun’, whose appearing will dispel the clouds, and dry the rain off the grass so that it springs back to life. This is the Sun of Righteousness; the Hebrew word translated ‘righteousness’ is the same word God uses to describe the one to come, the Branch, in Jeremiah 23 :6 – ‘the Lord Our Righteousness’, Jehovah Tsidkenu. He is altogether right, just and Holy.
HEALING IN HIS WINGS
This Sun is He whose face shone like the sun (Rev 1: 16). His coming was the dawn, the dayspring (Luke 1 : 78) that a jubilant Zachariah (the Father of John the Baptist) sang of. So now when you sing that carol and get to those lines you can sing with understanding (you have my permission to change the Son to Sun, no one will notice!).
In His sunshine rays, spreading out from His glorious brightness are your life, and your healing.
What was he doing on this pilgrimage? Yes it hadn’t been his choice to come, but now he had got this far, now he had seen what this journey meant to so many of his fellow travellers, he found his own heart purposed to complete it. It felt now like it was a necessary part of his own life journey, his own soul healing perhaps. His life up to this point had not gone as he had planned, and as for the future, he was more unsure of that than he had ever been. At least this journey had a purpose, and physical end point. But it wasn’t just getting to the Holy Island – Hywel knew that he needed to end this journey knowing the answer to the questions Gwrgenau had sent him away with, if he ever hoped to return to Cwmhir.
He longed for peace for his soul, and freedom from the burden of guilt that still plagued him. He wanted to know what his life purpose was; had God really called him, and for what? He could not turn back now. He could not return to Cwmhir unchanged, he knew it.
THE PILGRIM pp 185-186
Joy Margetts is a published author and blogger. Her books are works of Christian Historical fiction. Set in medieval Wales against the backdrop of Cistercian abbey life, they tell stories of faith, hope and God’s redemptive power. Her debut novel ‘The Healing‘ was published by Instant Apostle on 19 March 2021. Joy has also self- published a short novella, ‘The Beloved‘ as both a companion to ‘The Healing‘, and as an easy to read standalone story, which is available to buy on Amazon Kindle.
‘The Pilgrim‘, her second full length novel, was published by Instant Apostle on 22 July 2022
More information on Joy, and her books can be found here www.joymargetts.com
