Beacon in the Night

In the 1800’s, Captain William H. Swift commented on the dangers of some rock formations to mariners off the Massachusetts’ coast:

“Minot's Rocks... lie off the southeastern chop of Boston Bay. These rocks or ledges... have been the terror of mariners for a long period of years; they have been, probably, the cause of a greater number of wrecks than any other ledges or reefs upon the coast.”

Captain Swift was chosen to design the original iron pile lighthouse on Minot’s Ledge that was completed in 1849.  When it was destroyed by a colossal storm in 1851, a granite tower reinforced with iron shafts was built in its place.  It is called the Minot’s Ledge Lighthouse.

According to the website New England Lighthouses, “In 1894, Capt. F. A. Mahan, an engineer with the Lighthouse Board, suggested a new system for lighthouse characteristics. Under the new plan, every lighthouse in the nation would be given a unique numerical flash.

As a trial of the new system, on May 1, 1894, Minot’s Ledge Light was given a new 12-panel rotating second-order Fresnel lens and a distinctive characteristic 1-4-3 flash — a single flash followed by an interval of three seconds, then four flashes separated by one second, then another interval of three seconds of darkness followed by three flashes again separated by one second. Someone decided that 1-4-3 stood for ‘I love you,’ and Minot’s Ledge Light was soon popularly referred to as the ‘I Love You Light,’ an appellation that has inspired numerous songs and poems.”

Winfield Scott Thompson served as an assistant keeper of the lighthouse under Octavius Reamy in the early 1900s.  Thompson's wife and children lived in a duplex house on Government Island. At night, they could see the 1-4-3 flash of the lighthouse. Thompson's wife, Mary, told the children that their father was telling them how much he loved them each night with the “I Love You” flash. *

In the midst of a sin-torn world, there “stands” another Beacon that proclaims the
love of God to all humanity that is in peril due to the storm of sin..... 

That Beacon is the Cross of Christ!  

The Cross of Christ declares how terrible sin is, for it was “FOR SIN” that Jesus died on the cross.  The Cross of Christ also reveals the great love of God because it was not for His own sin (Jesus was sinless, Hebrews 4:15), but “for OUR sins” that Jesus was crucified (see 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; 2 Corinthians 5:21).

“This is how God showed his love to us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation [atoning sacrifice, divine substitute] for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10).

Like a beacon in the night, the Cross of Christ radiates the love of God and illuminates the way to eternal life to all who will place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and be baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).

Through the beacon of Cross of Christ, God declares, “I love you, and I want you to live with me forever.”

Won’t YOU follow the Light?

David A. Sargent, Minister