Until God spoke the first words that are ever recorded from his mouth: "Let there be light." Light to flood and eliminate the darkness. Light that will allow for shape and harmony and life itself to flourish. The empty filled and the formless ordered and beautified.
Our lives also began in darkness, hidden deep within the womb. And from our earliest days we have known darkness - a daily darkness as the sunlight fades and a daily darkness in the shadows cast by sin within and chaos without. In the gospel, the voice of God is heard speaking the same illuminating words as he shines into our hearts the light of his glory, seen in the face of Jesus Christ, his Son and our Saviour.
And yet we still know the rising and fading of the light, from day to day. We live within time and we live in the overlap of ages - this present evil age that has been invaded by the saving reign of Jesus, the age to come now present in embryonic power. We have become "light in the Lord" but still wrestle with the sorrowing darkness.
As the Bible draws to a close, a future is promised where “there will be no more night” (Rev. 22:5); no more darkness or chaos. That darkness is not dispelled by the brightness of the sun, but "the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp" (Rev. 21:23).
The creation of sun, moon and stars for light on the earth was always subsidiary, temporary and prophetic, pointing forward to a day when the whole creation will be ablaze with true light, the light of a glory that is full of grace and truth, a glory that banishes the curse, that brings to an end the old order of things, that ushers in a future healed of sorrows and devoid of pain.
So, as one year closes - and such a year - and as a new one begins, we long for the day when "The nations will walk by [his] light" and we pray with sure and certain hope, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”
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Light of the world, for ever, ever shining,
There is no change in Thee;
True Light of life, all joy and health enshrining,
Thou canst not fade nor flee.
Thou hast arisen, but Thou declinest never;
Today shines as the past;
All that Thou wast Thou art, and shalt be ever,
Brightness from first to last.
Night visits not Thy sky, nor storm, nor sadness;
Day fills up all its blue,
Unfailing beauty, and unfaltering gladness,
And love for ever new!
Light of the world! undimming and unsetting,
O shine each mist away!
Banish the fear, the falsehood, and the fretting;
Be our unchanging day.
(Horatius Bonar, 1808-89)
