Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

Introduction: Lost in the deep darkness of faithlessness

The prophet Jonah had lost faith in God. He refused to go to Nineveh to preach to the wicked people there, and in rebellion he hopped on a ship headed in the other direction (Jonah 1). God stirred up a storm and, knowing that the Lord was angry with him, Jonah submitted to be thrown into the sea in the hope that God would at least let the others on the boat survive. He had no hope for himself (ch. 2).

 

So down Jonah went into the deep, into the dark waters, with no faith that the Lord would save him. He sunk down into the formless void, but the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the deep, just as at the beginning of creation (Genesis 1:2).

 

God creates light

 

1. God said

The first of God’s acts of creation sets the pattern for the creative acts that follow. God is not mysterious in the manner in which He works. He has fully revealed to us how He accomplishes His purposes. It is through His speaking. “God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day” (Genesis 1:3-5a).

 

God spoke and it came to be. His Word is the active force of His doing. That is not to say that God cannot do anything without speaking. It is merely to point out that when He does speak, we should expect that His creative power is accomplishing something, particularly when He makes a command or a declaration. “The Word of God is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12).

 

God spoke, but He didn’t have to. Who was He talking to anyway? There was nothing to hear His voice but Himself. “Let there be” is a command given to something that does not yet exist. I can tell a person to “come over here,” or speak of an object, “set it over there,” but I must be talking to someone about something that is already in existence. I can come close to God’s words and say, “Let the light shine in the window.” But I cannot be talking to the light itself, and especially if the light did not already exist. I could only be talking to anything that would prevent the light from passing through. “Don’t put up a curtain,” or wishfully, “clouds, go away.”

 

But God’s command at creation is different. He doesn’t speak to the darkness as if the darkness has some kind of power to let an existing light come through. For darkness is not a thing. It is the absence of a thing. To overcome the darkness something had to be added that was not there before. Something had to be commanded or called that didn’t exist beforehand. “Let there be light.”

 

2. “Let there be light.” And there was light.

And who or what responded, other than the light that did not yet exist before God called for it? There was no Greek god with a chariot to pull the sun out of hiding. There was only the Word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:1-3). God the speaker spoke the Word. The Word went forth from the Speaker while the Spirit of God hovered in that dark, empty, formless place. “And there was light.”

 

3. God saw the light

God did not only speak. He also saw. God saw the light. He saw what He had spoken into being. He called forth into existence what could not become of itself, and He regarded it. He looked at it. He observed it. He did not just call the light and pay no attention to it, as we might call through the house just to see if someone was there, but with no intention of interacting with them. No, God looked and He saw.

 

4. The light was good

He looked hard enough to consider and make a judgment about the light. “God saw that the light was good.” He was pleased with it. It was how He wanted it to be. It was going to fulfill the purpose for which He spoke it into being. It was going to serve well.

 

5. God separated light from darkness

And so God immediately put it to its purpose and He “separated the light from the darkness.” The darkness was no longer over the face of the whole deep. There was a place of light where the darkness was no longer present. It was no mixture but a contrast, a boundary, a limit set so that the further purposes of God could be carried out.

 

6. God called the light “day”

Then, after speaking to the light to bring it into existence, and in addition to seeing the light and declaring that it was good, God named the light. “God called the light Day.” He formed a relationship with the light so that He could address it and the light could be sure that God was referring to it.

 

I am well aware that things like light and darkness do not have a consciousness. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a relationship with God. God is the Creator and the light is one of His creations. Within the relationship of Creator and creature, God bids them to do; and in response to Him they do it. We are not able to have that kind of relationship with inanimate beings. Even though we might call out to the sun to shine brighter on a cloudy day or bid the darkness to go away when we are scared, they do not obey us. We ought, rather, to speak to the One with whom we do have a relationship and pray to God that the sun would shine seasonably upon the earth and the darkness not overwhelm us.

 

7. the lights for signs and seasons, days and years

“And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years” (Genesis 1:14). For God has given His creation of light a purpose for its existence. The lights of the sun, the moon, and the stars mark the passage of time, and with them God gives us indications of what kind of a growing season we will have.

 

He has even assigned to the bodies of light the glorious task of heralding His coming. As the wise men saw a star in the East telling them of the birth of Jesus (Matthew 2:2), and darkness covered the earth when He suffered and died for our sins upon the cross (27:45); so when Jesus comes again there will be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars which will tell us to “straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:25, 28). Even on an ordinary Sunday morning, the rising of the sun tells us that the Lord is coming to meet us in Word and Sacrament in the Divine Service.

 

8. to give light upon the earth

Of course, the chief purpose of these astral bodies is to give light on the earth, upon the realm where mankind dwells. These lights give us safety and warmth, comfort and security. They remind of us of God’s omnipotent power which He exercises in His compassionate care for us.

 

9. God ordered the light to rule over day and night

The created light is a part of His ordered plan not just for the light itself, but for our lives day to day, year by year, and even to point us to the salvation that He has provided for us. God regarded and considered how the light was ordered and regulated, “And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:18).

 

Transition

This process of God’s creation is repeated for all that goes into the universe in which we dwell. We could equally spend time examining the manner in which God also created the sea and dry land, the plants, the fish, the birds, and the animals, and of course His creation of man, male and female. But there is another act of creation that continues, of which it is vitally important that we note how God operates in this ongoing creative act as well.

 

St. Paul tells us: “God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). This creation of faith within us follows the same pattern as God’s calling forth light at the first of creation. It is by this creative act of God to bring into existence in us what was not there of its own, that was displayed in the salvation of Jonah, in whom the light of faith had gone out.

 

 

God creates faith

 

1. God said

God has spoken toward us. The same creative Word that was with Him in the beginning has come into His creation in order to speak with us. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Jesus is the incarnate Word of God. He was with God in the beginning and all things were made through Him.

 

God has spoken to us in Jesus Christ to bring about the light of faith in the darkness of our hearts. To be sure He has been speaking to mankind all along from the time of creation to this very day. In the Person of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of the Father, God speaks a creative word to call into being something that did not exist before His speaking.

 

2. “the light shines in the darkness” (John 1:5).

God said, “Let there be light and there was light.” God also sent His Son so that the light of His glory would shine into the world. The light of God’s holy love and compassion shone into this world darkened by mankind’s sin. When Jesus began to preach, Matthew tells us that God’s word spoken by Isaiah was fulfilled: “for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned” (Matthew 4:16). Where there was only mankind’s sin God spoke in the eternal Word made flesh, the Person of Jesus Christ, in order to dispel the darkness of sin and let the light of glory appear.

 

As there was only the darkness of sin in the world apart from the light of the Word of God’s promise of forgiving grace, so also in you there was only darkness, and there would be only darkness if God had not spoken with His creative almighty powerful Word to you. You would be like the wicked people of Nineveh without the preaching of Jonah, and like Jonah himself whose sinking into the darkness of the deep was a manifestation of the light of His faith in God being extinguished through His rebellion.

 

But that Word has called into being something that was not there before or was at one time and then completely extinguished. The Word has called into existence the light of faith within you. It took God’s almighty creative power to bring your faith into existence. Without His powerful creative action in you through the Word, you would never believe it, never trust Him, never come back after your sinful rebellion, never know His forgiving mercy and salvation. St. Paul describes it in the opening of his letter to the Ephesians as “having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you” (Ephesians 1:18).

 

3. God saw the light

And God has not only spoken to bring the light of your faith into existence. He has also seen it. He has looked upon it and considered it. He has declared that it is good. “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14-16) and He does not want you to be hidden, but to be set in full view to be seen by all. He sees that light shining in you. He notes its brightness and its effect on the rest of creation.

 

4. It was good

“Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” The light of faith created in you is good and gives glory to its Creator. That is the judgment of God concerning what He sees of the light of faith in your life. He has made the judgment that it is good.

 

5. separated from darkness

As God separated the light from the darkness at the beginning of creation, so He has also done along with His speaking of faith into existence within you. “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). Like Jonah being rescued by a great fish and being spit out upon the sunny beach (Jonah 3), God has separated us from what is dark and dangerous and chaotic and brought us into the peace and safety and security of having the light of the knowledge of our salvation shining within us.

 

6. called the light

As He called His creation of light “day,” so He has called and named us along with the creation of the light of faith in our hearts. He declares of us, “You are all children of light, children of the day” (1 Thessalonians 5:5). He has brought us into a relationship with Him, that He might speak to us and we might respond to His speaking. But it is not merely as Creator and creatures. God Himself has defined our relationship with Him in faith to be that of Father and children.

 

Not only do we respond to what He speaks to us, giving Him glory by fulfilling His will for our lives, but we have the knowledge that His will for us is bound up with His love for us. As a Father loves His children and speaks to them words of love, encouragement, discipline, and guidance, so our heavenly Father speaks to us, and we respond to Him as dear children love their dear father.

 

7. for signs

The created light has a purpose to fulfill for the glory of God, revealing signs and seasons. So we also have a holy purpose in accord with the creation of the light of faith. St. Peter tells us that purpose is “that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9). As all the firmament proclaims His glory, so we in our lives of faith proclaim His love and compassion, His salvation and sacrifice. Our shining lives of faith proclaim what is most excellent about God—His grace and mercy toward sinners. They shine the light of the cross of Jesus, revealing our salvation from sin and death through His death and resurrection.

 

8. to give light on the earth

As the sun, moon, and stars give light on the earth, so “you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15). Without the sun, moon, and stars there would be only darkness in the realm in which we live. Similarly without the created light of faith in the hearts of His children, there would be only the darkness of sin and death among the kingdoms of man.

 

9. to rule over day and night

But in His kingdom, which is not of this world, His children permeate through all the kingdoms of this world. Around the globe and throughout history, the light of salvation in the children of God has pierced the darkness. “Now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).It is a walk of life in the light of God’s word of forgiving grace and mercy.

 

Conclusion: God saw that it was good.

“If we walk in the light as He is in the light.... the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7). Like Jonah, with faith rekindled once God called the gracious fish to swallow him from sinking in the deep darkness, our relationship with the Father is restored. Our prayer of faith in response to His divine intervention is answered, and we are delivered out of the deep darkness of our sin. His forgiving love to us through His Son Jesus Christ rescues us from the peril of every sinful rebellion. And His creative Spirit remains with us ready to bring salvation as He continues to hover over the face of the deep.