The Prisoner Who Watched for the Morning Star

In 1636, Scottish minister Samuel Rutherford was banished to Aberdeen and forbidden to preach. Stripped of his pulpit and isolated from his congregation, he did the only thing left to him — he wrote letters. Over two hundred of them poured from that exile, and they burned with a single, relentless longing: to see the face of Christ.

Rutherford called Jesus his "Morning Star" and wrote of the coming glory with an intimacy that still startles readers four centuries later. "Oh, that Christ would remove the covering," he urged a friend, pleading with her to keep watching, keep hoping. When death finally came for him in 1661, just days before he would have faced execution for his faith, his final words were: "Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land."

This is the same ache that pulses through Revelation 22. Jesus names Himself "the bright Morning Star" and extends the most staggering invitation in all of Scripture: "Let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift." No prerequisites. No admission fee. Just come.

And to every heart that answers that invitation, Christ speaks His final promise: "Surely I am coming soon." The only fitting response is the one Rutherford lived his whole life praying — "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."