Lights

“Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth’; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.” (Genesis 1:14–19)

By the fourth day of creation God had already turned the empty canvas into a living, growing, four-dimensional masterpiece, full of beauty and wonder and purpose. Now God gets happy. He was already happy, of course, but now He pulls out the fireworks. It’s as if He’s laid the carpet, painted the walls, started filling in with some furniture, and then the ceiling catches His eye: “That will not do. Need a little more excitement in that corner of creation.” And then He got busy.

Homer’s “rosy-fingered Dawn” begins the show. The sun will not only be “the greater light to rule the day,” reigning from his throne on high, but he will now be the source of all light and life that gives life to all living things in the world. His heat warms; his heat withers. All are under his all-seeing eye, all depend on him for life, all are under his domain. The sun reigns as king. No wonder those who left off worshiping God the creator chose early as substitute the sun as their god. But the sun himself is unwilling, of course: his glory reflects the glory of the God who made him. Jesus is our Sun of Righteousness, the Light of the World, who gives life and light to all the world, “healing in His wings.”

Next the moon in her own turn, in this perfectly hierarchical world, is made to reflect the glory of the sun. She certainly has her own glory and purpose, but the light shining in the midst of the darkness is a light borrowed from the brilliance of day. She waxes and wanes, as do you and I, but she is consistently there, and on her brightest nights, the waters above and below reflect her glory as well. God has created each of us to be “little moons,” reflecting the glory of Christ in the midst of a dark world: we are to be “blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life” (Philippians 2:15).

“He made the stars also.” God is sometimes given to understatement. Who would have known these tiny little sparkling specks strewn promiscuously across the blackness of the heavens are so many more suns and moons and worlds themselves—millions of them dancing across millions of light-years of vastness—God only knows how many and how far and how vast! We who are children of Abraham with the like faith of Abraham, worshipers of the God who made the heavens and the earth, are not only the dust of the earth, numbering as the “sands of the seashore,” but we are also the stars of the sky. Jesus is the Morning Star, the first among who-knows-how-many brethren, and we will reign with Him forever, world without end. Amen!

“God, we give You thanks for the sun, moon, and stars, for the glory of the day, for the glory of the night. We pray You would make us indeed to be the light of the world, lights shining in the midst of the darkness of the world, reflecting always the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.”