What Alaska summers taught me about John 1

A few nights ago, here at my house in Alaska I was up for a little while at 3:00 AM. I walked into my kitchen, and this was the view of my backyard. (Why was I up at 3:00 AM? I’ll get to that at the end.)

No, my phone was not adjusting the lighting in this photo. Right now, only a few days past the longest day of the year, it never gets dark. The sun sets at 11:45 PM and rises at 4:13 AM. Twilight bridges the gap.

Last summer when we first moved to Alaska, everyone warned us about the dark winters and lack of sunlight.

You might think that the corrolary to 24 hours of light in the summer would be 24 hours of darkness in the depth of winter.

But it’s not.

After all the warnings we recieved, I was surprised that the darkest time of winter was… not that dark. During that time, there are a little over five hours between sunrise and sunset and some light before and after. The sun never gets high in the sky; it hugs the horizon between those hours of sunrise and sunset, but it’s more than enough to be light outside.

This realization gave me a new understanding of John 1:5:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Why is the opposite of 24 hours of sunlight not 24 hours of darkness?

Because light wins.

Darkness cannot overcome it.

To have darkness, you must have complete darkness, no light at all. If there’s any sunlight, even peaking over the horizon or just leftover from the recent sunset or foreshadowing the impending sunrise, then you have light.

This may not seem like the case with, say, a night light plugged into a bedroom wall, but we are, after all, talking about the sun, and this verse, after all, is talking about Jesus.

We live in a fallen world where sin is an ever-present reality, but remember, the light wins.

If you start to dispair that our country is no longer a Christian nation, remember that Jesus is already king and he will have the last word.

If you, like many people, are here because you are dealing with some health problem, take heart that the end of the story is eternity with God, no matter what.

What an amazing world God created that we have these kinds of illustrations in creation.

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Another realization came when spring (finally) came this year.

Well into May there wasn’t yet a hint of buds on the trees. It was still cold enough to need winter clothes to take a walk outside.

I had a garden to plant and seed starts waiting. I know people garden here quite successfully but I couldn’t help but worry: Is there really going to be time?

Then one day, it finally got warm enough to sit outside for a while in short sleeves. A couple days later, the trees to start budding leaves, and in less than a couple weeks, they were fully covered in thick, green foliage, the lawn dearly needed mowed, and the tallest dandelions you have ever seen were springing up beside the roads.

You see, the long hours of sunlight allow plants to grow very quickly and very large in the summer.

Just look at some of the state fair winning vegetables as proof:

Considering this, I realized that the only reason it can get so green here in the summer so far north is precisely because it is so far north.

The only reason more of the top and bottom of the globe aren’t Arctic tundras is because, coincidentally, the same orbit of the Earth that causes long, cold winters is the same phenomenon that causes long hours of sunlight in the summer.

But, of course, this isn’t a coincidence, it’s the intelligence of God’s design.

The more I learn, the more it is beyond me how anyone can think any of it is an accident, or how anyone can think we will do well to disregard God’s natural created order in favor of our own.

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Now, why was I awake at 3 AM? Because on May 28th we welcomed our third baby girl. She was born at home after a healthy pregnancy and birth.

Her name is Apricity, which means “the warmth of the sun in water”.