"Fireworks" have been around well over a thousand years, with special colors and effects that brightened the skies over China as early as 700 AD.
Neon was discovered in 1898 and now there are about 100 different colors that can be produced in that distinctive tube lighting.
Some resorts and vacation spots are always associated with alluring lighting -- the Las Vegas Strip, the Lights of Broadway, the City that Never Sleeps, the City of Lights.
Jesus reminds us that "men loved darkness because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19).
That's true. But isn't it amazing how much sin we can accomplish in brightly lighted streets and buildings? And homes? We have become very proficient in our pursuit of evil --day and night!
Great public displays of fire works and creative lighting have been popular in the United States since our first 4th of July celebration.
Sometimes these events were called Grand Illuminations, and perhaps the most famous was in Washington, D.C., April 13, 1865. It was Thursday.
Lee had surrendered to Grant on the 9th of April. The war was over. (Abraham Lincoln's fateful visit to Ford's Theater would not come until the next night, on Good Friday, April 14.)
It was the best time to celebrate the best news people had heard for many years!
The War was over. The Union was saved. The American dream was still going to come true!
Bring out the LIGHTS!
The biggest Grand Illumination ever -- a mass lighting of every candle, gas lamp, and firework in the city!
Thousands of people streamed into the nation's capital to witness the attempt to turn night into day.
To officially declare that the long dark gloom of the war was over. A bright new day was dawning.
On the roof of the Willard Hotel workers installed gas jets to spell out the word "Union." Bon fires would be lit all over the city.
Government buildings had competitions to see which one could be the most brilliantly lighted and decorated.
The war department building featured 5000 (yes, five thousand) candles glowing from its windows.
Bursts and bangs of fireworks sounded all over the city -- (I wonder, did the returning soldiers, and especially General Grant really appreciate that noise and flashing lights? Hadn't they had enough of that on the battle fields for the past four years?)
The celebration continued all Thursday night and resumed the next evening, Friday, until the word began to reach the revelers that the President had been shot while out celebrating with his wife and friends at Ford's Theater.
Then turn out the lights. The party's over.
Selah.
There was another grand illumination recorded in Exodus 13.
After leaving Succoth they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and a pillar of fire by night so they could travel day or night. Neither the pillar by day or the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.That pillar of fire was bright enough to enable the Israelites, with their carts and oxen and families of elderly and small children to safely travel the rough wilderness pathway.
It had to be as light as noontime.
There was no night there.
But the greatest and grandest illumination is still to come. It, too, is revealed to us in sacred text.
And it will be in a capital city. But not Washington, D.C.
We call that city the New Jerusalem, a city that...
does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives its light and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.On no day will its gates be shut, for there will be no night there. Revelation 21.There will be no night there.
And the party will never be over.
Praise God for His unspeakable gift.
Selah.
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