The Good Light

The title is not a misquote. I didn't mean to say, “The Good Life”. “Good light” is a phrase that Moses quoted and God used in Genesis 1.3. What does “good light” look like? Would you know it if you saw it? We awake to a crystal clear, sparkling, lovely Summer, Winter, Spring or Fall day and it thrills our soul. Imagine how different our perspective might be if we were seeing “good light”.

“Mike, get to the point, for Pete’s sake! I was up late last night. I don't want a long drawn out, flowery, ‘funny’ lead into a sermon!” Sorry. I was up until 3:30 AM too. New Years Eve/ Day is like that isn't it?

This is somewhat how the phrase looks in Hebrew though it probably wasn't blue nor digital on Moses’ iPad,  וַיַּ֧רְא  אֱלֹהִ֛ים  אֶת־  הָאֹ֖ור  כִּי־  טֹ֑וב . At least this is what I cut and pasted from biblos.com.

“Good” and “light” are some of the first words of Creation. God created light and saw that it was good. Think about that. How did stuff look before there was light? Oh... wait. There was no stuff. Sorry.

Not only did God create good light, he separated it from darkness. Try that on a cold winter’s night around a crackling fire. Take some light and divide it from a gob of darkness. Can science do stuff like that? No. Such a simple task. Just separate a dab of light from a cup of darkness. Right.

Science can't even explain what light is, let alone make or separate it from darkness. What is darkness for that matter? The absence of light... duh.

New Year’s day, as mentioned, is usually a short day because of all of the festivities from the night before. Half light and half dark, a day with twenty four hours just like all of the rest. However, without light there would be no celebrations. In this first act of creation God’s first choice was “good light”. There was no sun, moon or stars only good light.

Could it be that God was simply revealing himself to his creation? No, because light was a part of that creation. Could it be that he wanted everyone to see what he was going to do? Did he need the light to do his work. No and no. He was alone in this and darkness is light to him (Psalm 139.12).

The light we see is not the good stuff; it is under the curse. Sun sparkling on crisp new snow is lovely but cursed. Rays reflecting off roiling sea foam, cursed. Eye piercing sunbeams coming from between fall-colored leaves, again cused on two fronts. Colored leaves are dying leaves.

I cannot wait to see the GOOD stuff. I think that Peter, James and John got a glimpse of the Good Light on Transfiguration mount (Matthew 17.2). Take a quick look at that story and you’ll see what I mean.

Do you know the “Good Light” maker? Today of all days would be a great day to get to know him. Let his light shine into your pitch black soul.  It would be a “Good” start to this new year. Don't you think?