CityAlight - On That Day Lyrics
Lyrics
V1
I believe in Christ, risen from the dead
He now reigns victorious, His kingdom knows no end
Through His resurrection death has lost its hold
I know on that final day I’ll rise as Jesus rose
CHORUS
On that day we will see you shining brighter than the sun
On that day we will know you as we lift our voice as one
Till that day we will praise you for your never ending grace
And we will keep on singing on that glorious day
V2
What a blessed hope, though now tired and worn
We will spend eternity around our Saviour’s throne
Though we grieve our losses we grieve not in vain
For we know our crown of glory waits beyond the grave
BRIDGE
Hallelujah what a day it will be
For at home with you my joy is complete
As I run into your arms open wide I will see
My father who is waiting for me
Video
CityAlight - On That Day (Live)
Meaning & Inspiration
There’s a line in the second verse by CityAlight that catches me off guard every single time: "Though we grieve our losses we grieve not in vain."
Most hymns about the afterlife tend to brush past the actual, messy business of dying. They move so quickly to the "crown of glory" or the "throne" that the person currently sitting on their couch, nursing a fresh heartbreak, feels like they’re being told to hurry up and get over their sadness. But that phrase—"grieve not in vain"—is different. It stops the clock.
Think about the tension there. If you look at it literally, it’s a paradox. Grief, by its nature, feels like a void. It feels like throwing something precious into a bottomless pit. When you lose a parent, a spouse, or a version of yourself that you were particularly fond of, the immediate reality is a lack of purpose. You feel empty. To be told that this process of mourning has a point—that it isn’t being wasted—is a massive claim.
It’s the Apostle Paul’s sentiment in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, where he tells the believers not to grieve "as others do who have no hope." It isn’t an instruction to stop feeling the ache; it’s an instruction to locate that ache within a larger geography.
Is it a cliché? On a surface level, you could argue it’s just church-speak meant to comfort the bereaved. But if you sit with it, the poetry holds a jagged edge. It implies that my tears are being collected, that they are being transfigured into something else entirely. It suggests that my pain is being invested in a kingdom economy rather than just evaporating into the air.
There’s a weird discomfort in that, too. If my grief isn’t in vain, does that mean I shouldn’t be trying to move past it so quickly? Sometimes I think we try to "heal" just to make the people around us feel less awkward. But if the grief has a weight and a destination, maybe I’m supposed to sit with it longer than I want to. Maybe the "not in vain" part is less about the absence of pain and more about the presence of a promise.
When I hear the phrase, I don’t feel an immediate sense of relief. I feel a lingering question: if this isn't in vain, what exactly is it building? I don’t have the answer to that. I just know that when I’m staring down a loss that feels utterly pointless, having a lyric that gives me permission to acknowledge the pain while pointing toward an "otherwise" feels like the only way to keep moving. It turns the grave from a full stop into a comma. It’s a strange, difficult hope, but it’s the only one I’ve got.