The Day Ends in Light

reversing the paradigm

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Genesis 1:3-5

I’ve been wrestling with the difference between my concept of a day and the Genesis description.

In our modern order of things, a new day begins at midnight or 12 am. Any night owl looking at their phone can attest that this is the switch that flips us from one calendar date to the next, but is it man’s invention? The belief that my day begins when I wake up and ends when I fall asleep perhaps is natural enough, but is this the actual pattern of the world?

Some, if not all, of the best literature, begins with a paragraph that encapsulates the entire book within the framework of a particular metaphor, theme, or pronouncement. If the author is particularly brilliant, the first line does the trick, and the body of the novel can be filtered through its words like hot water dripping through dark roasted beans to present the reader with an experience as rich and stimulating as a steaming cup of coffee.

Examples:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… – Tale of Two Cities

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. – Pride and Prejudice

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. – Anna Karenina

Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself in dark woods, the right road lost. – Inferno

Dickens wrote a story about revolution and its consequences both good and bad; Austen told a tale about marriages of love, convenience, or both; Tolstoy penned a masterpiece on the development of families made whole or irrevocably broken, and Dante tackled a mid-life crisis by wrestling with words on eternal consequence. Great authors, great books, great first lines to open the door unto worlds of humanity.

Most mornings this week around 7 am, which I consider the beginning of the day, I grabbed my dark elixir straight from the brewing pot and settled into the Well-Watered Woman advent Bible study. I’ve come to appreciate how this particular guide helps me go deep, causing my soul to pull up bucketloads of scriptural meditation.

On the first day, the study simply asked, What did God do in the beginning?

Referencing Genesis 1:1 of course, I wrote my answer: “In the beginning God created…”

Straightforward enough, but the text provoked my curiosity off-script to ask,

But as the greatest Author of the greatest Book, what did God give for His first line?

God said, ‘Let there be light.’

As with all fine literature, the following first paragraph expounds on the first line, as I’ve included above. God’s first paragraph concludes with a simple description of the first act of creation: “And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.”

evening + morning = first day

Here is where my wrestling begins because I don’t get the impression that this equation is commutative. It has a particular order. An order we’ve alarmingly reversed. Though it is cyclical, we are given a clear depiction seven times over in the first chapter of the Book, “And there was evening, and there was morning – the ___ day.”

Maybe, it is confusing because God started with light, just as we think of waking up to the morning light. But looking again, it wasn’t a sunrise. After all, the sun wasn’t created to ‘govern the day’ until the 4^th cycle of evening and morning (Gen 1:14-19).

That’s surprising!

…and again, confusing.

Totally bewildering, actually… if we approach it with the default modern mode of pragmatic thinking. But thank goodness, this is not a biology textbook.

Okay, so light from God (alone) came first.

As with a gripping novel, perhaps the first line can’t be fully appreciated or interpreted until we’ve read through the story. To save time, let’s do that particularly scandalous act of skipping to the last page to see how it ends:

The final line spoken by the angel to John proclaims,

“There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.”

Revelation 22:5

What! Have you ever noticed how the Author uses such a perfect stylistic topic/clincher device? The world ends with light, as it began!

So, evening and morning, the first to one-billionth day.

Could this cycle be a rehearsal of the whole time-continuum plot?

Let’s review, Spark Notes version:

God began by allowing light to shine from His glory onto the formless earth, but humanity was plunged into darkness by rebellion, a gloomy wasteland of groping confusion. However, just as God made provision for stars to shine in the black vault of night, he also gave prophets and a nation called Israel to bring light to those on the earth who for a time were turned away from heaven’s full illumination. Then, like the moon rising to reflect the coming glory of sunrise, Jesus’ first coming testified of a coming Day. He came and provided enough light to give men and women hope for the morning. Not only that, but He also gave to those who believed this, the ability to reflect Him and be the “light of the world” until like stars enveloped by the dawn, they would be swallowed up in the full glory of Day.

What a story! And as with all great literature, Truth.

The day doesn’t end in the evening. No, that is how it began… in a garden when a woman was deceived into wanting to know about the dark as well as the light. But God, the generous Father, was ahead of her misguided choice and already knew her great-granddaughter ‘living in the land of the shadow of death’ would humble herself to give birth to the ‘bright morning star.’

This is a story of hope. A grand work of literature that the Author begins in the light of a garden, proceeds to twilight and deep darkness - even the bitter dark of death, but ends in resurrection and full light.

“The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.” Proverbs 4:18

As I write, a new day has begun… it is noon. I know my phone won’t change the calendar date, but I secretly smile knowing that a journey around the earth’s axis has just begun, setting my internal timepiece to a new paradigm.

To what end?

To remember that the world ends in Light.

If you’ve enjoyed reading this short meditation, please consider:

thank you!