Description

The Long Shadow

I awoke to cloudy skies and the threat of rain. I thought to myself, ‘I’d better hurry and go running before the rain comes.’ A few minutes later, I set out, just as the sun broke over the mountains to the east. I had not gone far when I saw a riveting sight. Off in the distance to the west, heavy thunderclouds, dark, and ominous could be seen coming my way. I stopped to take a picture, but then noticed, with the rising sun directly at my back, my own shadow extended far off into the west. I took the picture and pondered what I had seen for the rest of my run.

My shadow looked very similar to me, though I only wish I was that tall. With the sun at my back, my shadow was cast far into the future of the direction I was headed. My shadow would serve as a warning to all in that I was coming. They would see my shadow before they saw me. Or in other words, my coming was foreshadowed.

Christ’s second coming has been foreshadowed several times in the past. The fiery destruction of the ancient world powers of Assyria and Babylon described in Isaiah 10 and 13, cast long shadows of what was to come in the future. And again, the destruction of Judah by Rome in 70 A.D. described by the Savior in Matthew 24 foreshadowed events that He said would come again. And finally, if we would know what is going to happen at the Lord’s second coming, look at what happened at His first coming in 3 Nephi. They are a shadow of things to come.

These past events were typical or types of His future second coming. The fires of their burning cast long foretelling shadows into the future. If we understand what happened then we will be better prepared for what will happen in the not-too-distant future.

This important knowledge is not hidden in dark shadows but plainly revealed, as Paul said, to the “Children of Light.” Ephesians 5