Darkness first appears in Scripture in relation to primordial chaos. All was dark when God made the world, but out of the darkness, God created light. Let there be, and there was. It was not merely dark before, the kind of darkness you have when the sun goes down. This was complete darkness, perfect darkness, because light did not exist in the world. There was no indirect lighting. It was not merely dim. It was darker than a cave when you journey underground and the guide turns off all the lights. Even there, light exists; it is simply too low for you to perceive it. But the world at the beginning of Genesis 1 was a world without any light at all. Until God spoke, the whole universe remained in perfect darkness.
The sun, moon, and stars are not the sources of light in the universe; God is. He is the light that shone on Day 1, long before the heavenly bodies were brought into existence on Day 4. The Word of God, the Logos, shines forth on Day 1: Let there be light, and the Word brought light into this world. The Son of God began to shine, and order began to appear in the universe. God’s Son, the Word, is the light of the world. The sun in our sky is only his representative, a placeholder to remind us of the true Son who gives light to the world. The sun is a creational symbol of the uncreated God who is, himself, the source of light and life.
In the Bible darkness represents disorder, ignorance, and estrangement from light and life and truth. It is used to portray God’s wrath and just judgments. The enemies of the Lord live in darkness and will be condemned in the end to the outer darkness, but those who receive mercy and peace in Christ are brought from darkness into light, out of death into resurrection life, spared from wrath and given reason to rejoice forever.
The Creator built a resurrection sign into the rhythm of every day. Every morning, light dawns, awaking the world from the slumber of death. Every night, the world dies and descends into darkness, awaiting the voice of the Maker who the next day will once again say: Let there be…. The heavens declare the glory of God, and so too they declare the gospel. Yahweh has brought light to the darkness, life to the dead, and gladness to the sorrowful. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
We do not perceive the gospel presentation painted across the screen of the sky every day because we all took science classes in school and are too smart to believe in such absurdities. We learned about the rotation of the earth and its orbit around the sun. We understand the sun doesn’t really “rise” and “set.” It is only our perception of a mechanical process, created by God, to be sure, but of no more theological significance than the metamorphosis of a butterfly. Ahem. We have learned so much that we have become useful idiots, promoting the propaganda of a godless Darwinism while missing the creational ritual being performed before our eyes every day. The rising and setting of the sun is a play—like a Bridegroom coming out of his chamber… rejoicing like a strong man to run its race. Are you watching closely? It is so familiar you may miss it.
The Son of God, the Logos, is the light of the world. It is true in Genesis 1; it is affirmed again in John 1. He comes to bring light and life and truth to this world, but then like the sun, he passes out of sight and into darkness. He descends into the ground, just as the sun does every night, buried beneath the horizon, and the world lies in darkness. The light of the world dies, and creation sleeps in death, awaiting the Word to speak in the darkness once more: Let there be….
Commentators tell us of a solar eclipse that accompanied the crucifixion of Christ two thousand years ago. Maybe that is how the Lord did it. However it happened, the Lord turned out the lights in the land of Israel just as he had done in Egypt many years before. This is not a piece of fiction. As Jesus hung on the cross, darkness covered the land. It was not the perfect darkness of Genesis 1 nor the paralyzing darkness of the plagues on Egypt. It was the darkness of a setting sun, the twilight in which one can still see but only dimly, and it happened in the middle of the day.
Wrath had come upon the Son, to be sure. He was suffering, for our sakes, the penalty of our sins. By his stripes, we are healed, and he had to be struck so that we might be delivered. But the darkness is not merely wrath. It is death anticipating new creation. The old world is dying on that cross. The Law is nailed there with Jesus. The Mosaic system is coming to an end, and a new creation is about to appear. The resurrection would take place on the 8th day, Sunday, the first day of a new creation week, the day when the Son rose from the earth, when the Word of God, the Logos, once again cried out in the darkness: Let there be light, and behold, there is light.
We now live in the new creation, though its fullness is not yet seen. The light has appeared, and God is now working to put the new world in order. The sun is up, if we have eyes to see. The day has dawned. Life has begun anew, new and everlasting life with God in the heart of every believer, and new life to be realized on the day of redemption when Jesus sets creation free from the curse of sin under which it has suffered for so long.The sun set on Calvary that day, but it set in order to rise again. Each day reenacts the Gospel story. Faith enables us to see it for what it is. God is reminding us of our history, he is preaching to us about our future, and he is fixing our minds on Christ, the eternal Son, the Logos, whose voice has cried out in the darkness of our hearts and caused light to appear. Amen.
