Let The Lower Lights Be Burning

Good morning and welcome to Our Daily Walk.

Audio version at http://tinyurl.com/39hm6y

Lyrics to popular songs are sometimes difficult to understand. The internet has helped in this area. A person can perform a search on a song title and have the lyrics come up pretty quickly. Unfortunately, even then the lyrics don’t always make sense. I miss the good old days when you could sing along with a song and understand all of the words.

At times our singing in worship includes lyrics that we may not always understand. Words and phrases like “dross” or “Ebion Pinion” generally escape our modern understanding. And then there are the songs written with a particular setting in mind. With these we must understand the background and setting in order to fully appreciate the song itself. Such is the case with Let The Lower Lights Be Burning.

Philip Bliss is the author and composer of this still popular hymn. Written in 1869, this song was inspired by a sermon preached by Dwight Moody. Bliss worked with Moody on his evangelistic campaigns and led the singing. One night Moody was describing a horrible tragedy that happened at Cleveland Harbor on Lake Erie in 1869.

Lake Erie was known for sudden and violent storms. In an effort to help the ships, the city of Cleveland constructed a special harbor. This harbor had a lighthouse which could be seen far out into the lake. And it also had smaller lights which lined the harbor much like an airport runway might be lighted today. These lower lights were not as tall as the lighthouse and were seen only as the ships approached the harbor.

On this particular night in 1869 a ship was caught up in a storm on the lake. Trying to make the safety of the harbor the ship’s captain saw the main light of the lighthouse but could not make out the lower lights.

He asked his crew to look more closely and they also came up with no lights seen. They had gone out. Wondering if he could make the harbor without the lights the captain decided that he had no choice but to make the attempt.

With great skill and courage he steered the ship toward the great light of the lighthouse but he ran aground and the ship sank. Several of the passengers died that night in that wreck.

Naturally people wanted to know why the lights were not lit that night. When they found the man responsible, he said that he didn’t feel up to filling the lamps that day. After all, he reasoned, no one had ever told him that they used those lights for anything.

Moody’s sermon focused on the fact that God is the great light and will keep that light bright for all time. But we are the lower lights and it is our responsibility to keep them going.

Jesus said as much in Matthew 5:14-16.

“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good words and glorify your father in heaven.”

A great loss of life could have been averted if that one man had filled the oil for the lights. What a shame that he didn’t feel the responsibility to perform his one function upon which so many would depend.

Friends, the same is true today of you and me. Jesus has given us the charge to be lights in the world, to draw others to Christ, to be His representatives on this earth. While many people can see and acknowledge the great light, God, they cannot find the safe harbor without also seeing the lower lights burning.

Brightly beams our Father’s mercy, from His lighthouse evermore,

But to us He gives the keeping of the lights along the shore.

Let the lower lights be burning, send a gleam across the wave!

Some poor fainting, struggling seaman, you may rescue, you may save.

On Our Daily Walk today, may we never underestimate our role in doing God’s will on earth. May we approach each action, each opportunity knowing that we are lights shining into a sin darkened world.

Our thought for the day: “In the darkness there is no choice. It is light that enables us to see the differences between things; and it is Christ who gives that light.” Mrs. C. T. Whitnell

May God bless you on your daily walk.

© Our Daily Walk, Mike Baker, 2007. Permission is granted to copy these articles provided they are not sold and the author's name and copyright are included.