Shadows

We've been in San Antonio for a few days, following Nathan's graduation for Texas State. He is now, officially, as he says "All educamated." While we were there we decided to do something we have often talked about, but never done - we went for a ride on a boat on the riverwalk. Big mistake. I don't know how hot it was down there, but it felt like 100 degrees. Babies were crying, old ladies were wilting, and we turned a lovely shade of lobster. The contrast between the full force of the sun and the shade beneath the bridges was dramatic. It made me think of the Psalmist's prayer, "Hide me under the shadow of Your wings."

Shadows are sometimes described as fleeting and insubstantial. Human life, always uncertain and sometimes very brief, has often been likened to a shadow. Life is, according to the Talmud, "as the shadow of a bird's wing in its flight," and the Psalmist added, "my days are like a dying shadow." Shelley says that the despairing move "in the shadow of a starless night." Or, perhaps you know James Shirley's lines, that "the glories of our blood and state are shadows, not substantial things."

On the other hand, there's a lovely verse in the Song of Solomon, in which life is pictured as rich and thrilling because of the prevailing shadows: "My beloved is mine, and I am his; he feeds among the lilies. Until the day breaks, and the shadows fall away, turn, my beloved, and be like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether." In fact, there is beauty in the shadow, and the Bible writers, living in a land where the sun is scorching, often think of shadow as a place of rest. "I sat down under the shadow with great delight," says the Song of Solomon. Isaiah, describing the perfect friend (and therefore, God) says he is "as a hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest: as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a mighty rock in a weary land."

Unlike the Greeks, for whom the half-light was tinged with danger and regret, the Hebrews valued the opportunity to escape from the noonday sun. After all, even the darkness of the grave holds no terrors if God is there.

Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand,

The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land;

A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way,

From the burning of the noontide heat, and the burden of the day.

O safe and happy shelter, O refuge tried and sweet,
O trysting place where Heaven’s love and Heaven’s justice meet!
As to the holy patriarch that wondrous dream was given,
So seems my Savior’s cross to me, a ladder up to heaven.

There lies beneath its shadow but on the further side
The darkness of an awful grave that gapes both deep and wide
And there between us stands the cross two arms outstretched to save
A watchman set to guard the way from that eternal grave.

Upon that cross of Jesus mine eye at times can see
The very dying form of One Who suffered there for me;
And from my stricken heart with tears two wonders I confess;
The wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness.

I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face;
Content to let the world go by to know no gain or loss,
My sinful self my only shame, my glory all the cross.
Elizabeth Clephane.