Jesus and the First Day, 1
“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” - Genesis 1:3-5
Maybe you’ve heard of sonoluminescence? The sound waves moving through bubbles (air) in water at such a speed that the space surrounding the collapsing bubble generates light. This mixture of sound, water, and air, moving at immense speed, thus producing light implies a great amount of power, pressure, and/or force.
“And God said.”
How powerful is This voice then? His Breath, Voice, and percise Word choice calls light out of darkness. Notice that this Scripture does not say that He made this light, but that simply “there was light”. Where? “There”. Which there? I undersand it is where God said, “let there be light.” There, that is, the Word spoken there, that is “light.”
I imagine a sound, continually ringing, like a song and echo never ceasing, reverberating forevermore, this Word which brought light out of darkness, is “the Light of the world.”
And so John writes,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1
And writing in another place John says, “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:5
And of Jesus’ own testimony, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” John 8:12
John writes, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” John 1:4
The life in Him, shared with us, is the light of men. As Jesus said, “the light of life.”
Life itself is a light, the light. Life and light are inseparable, because the life in Him was the light of men. While some have tried to separate them, according to Jesus, this is futile.
The Divine Word manifested at the unction of the Divine Breath and Voice is light. It is something that can be seen. The harmony between what was spoken and what is seen is indeed good, as God declared. We may not think so, because light makes manifest, and this can be painful. Yet this makes it possible for us to grow. The distinction between what is and what is not is important. Why? Ultimately so that we may know who God is, and what and who is not god. That distinction some would seek to destroy, ignore, or forget. Nevertheless, I understand, as it is written, that God divided the light from the darkness, the day from the night.
This is the first day.
Written Sunday morning, March 12, 2023.