Genesis1:5

God was the source of physical light because the stars had not yet been created. I believe that when He created light, it was coming from everywhere because God is everywhere, therefore it did not have to travel to get anywhere.

But for shadows (i.e. darkness) to be possible, light had to be coming from one place, not from everywhere all at once. We know that the Spirit of God is everywhere, and God the Father is often described as a spirit being, but Jesus is more likely to occupy a specific physical location even while away from this earth. His form or “body” would be different, but He may still be in just one place at one time (however, we do not know for sure). Therefore, if light needed to come from one member of the triune God, and come from one place rather than from everywhere, it is a relatively safe assumption to say that Jesus was the source of that original light.

In my opinion, the blob of matter that would become earth was originally not spinning. God created light, then assigned it to Jesus who occupied a specific location somewhere, and then set the earth to spinning. Or we could say that Jesus spoke light into being  but it came from all three members of the godhead, therefore, it came from everywhere all at once. Then it was assigned to Jesus in order to create night and day due to shadows. From the perspective of a specific spot on this planet, there was established a time of daylight and a time of darkness.

On day four of creation week Jesus assigned stars and other heavenly bodies as physical sources of the light He had created. The question, “Was there enough time for light to arrive here from distant stars?” is based on the idea of stars always being the source of their light. My point here is that they could not be the source of light because light was created three days earlier than they were! Therefore Jesus was the source of light and then He assigned it to the heavenly bodies. There was no need to wait for light from the stars to get where it was going because it was already everywhere since it had started out being everywhere all at once.

The text assumes the reader realizes that time has already been set by God and it has begun to do what time does. The passing of time is already happening. With the creation of light, the passage of time is marked and categorized by well-defined and easily recognizable periods of time which God called night and day.

It was not nighttime and daytime that comprised the first day, but rather evening and morning, referring to the transition times between light and darkness. When you notice that the two transitions have been completed (a transition from light to darkness, and then from darkness to light) and you are ready to start the cycle of transitions again, that means a full day has passed.

From this line of thinking we can deduce that the measuring of day one and day two, etc., and the timing of evening and morning, were communicated from the perspective of that one place on earth called Eden. The transition to evening was the first event in time to take place after the creation and separation of light. Is it any wonder then, that God’s followers considered evening-time the beginning of their day? In doing so they were simply mimicking what God had done at the beginning of creation.

Times of transition can be tricky. They afford us the opportunity to take steps forward, or they bring danger of making big mistakes.

When I was a pastor and I was asked to perform a wedding ceremony, I would tell the wedding party that the transitional parts of the ceremony were the times when most mistakes were made. As you know, there are a number of moving pieces in a wedding ceremony. Once people are in place things are usually okay until they have to move again, because, in my experience, that’s when most mistakes are made. Someone can turn left instead of right, stop too early, go too far, not move when they should move, too many people move, and the possibilities for errors goes on. For these reasons, I always had the wedding party practice the movements and transitions more than anything else.

It is the same in our daily lives. Transitions are important, and they offer us opportunities to make changes that take us in a positive, or negative direction. Stress tests indicate that any major change in life, such as moving to a different house or changing jobs, is a source of stress for us.

Therefore, we need to prepare for the transitional times before they arrive. For example, the ancient Israelites had to prepare for the arrival of the Sabbath day by preparing food ahead of time, so they did not need to cook on the Sabbath.

Now I ask you to think with me about some times of transition that are important for spiritual reasons and how we should prepare for them. I will not give you all my thoughts about each one; I will simply list them and I ask you to think about what is required in order to be ready for each of these transitions.

The transition into marriage

The transition from being childless, to the birth of the first child

The transition from being able to do things for ourselves to the limitations of old age

The transition from running away from God to running toward God

The transition from being alive in this physical body to death

Maybe God crafted the narrative of the beginning of all physical things so as to include an emphasis on transitional periods so we would see their importance and learn to prepare for them.