Let there be light: a meditation on the incarnation

It came to mind during the past year that while Genesis 3:15 is often referred to as the protoevangelium, or first Gospel, with its announcement to the serpent that the Seed of the woman would crush his head, there is actually an earlier protoevangelium of sorts. Arguably the first Gospel is found already in the first thing God ever said, namely, “Let there be light.” I preached this on Christmas Day this season:

              In the beginning was the Word. And this Word was with God, and this Word was God, for God is one. And that which came forth from him in the beginning was God, was Let there be light. And therefore there was light. For the world had been shrouded in darkness, thick darkness, oppressive darkness, as the Spirit of God brooded over the deep. But here was a prophetic word, a word that dispersed the darkness and the gloom, a word that would henceforth and forever be bound to the Spirit of God that hovered over the waters. For from then on, the Spirit and the Word would never be found separate but always together.  For the Spirit that hovered required an accompanying Word of God, even as it is today. Never can the Spirit of God be found where the is no Word, no Gospel. And so the Word sounded forth in the beginning: Let there be light, and there was light. Behold, there was light. And the light shined in the darkness, and brought order to a world that had been formless and void. The Word thus separated the waters that were above from the waters that were beneath by a firmament called Heaven. And the Word brought forth dry land out of the waters, and the Word assigned the light to substances, to bodies, to heavenly bodies: the sun and the moon and the stars. And the Word filled the waters and the heavens with life: birds and fish of all kind, living, and breathing, and reproducing (for the Word is never void or dead, but full of life). And the Word then filled the earth with life, with beasts and all manner of creeping animals. And then, the Word took of the earth and fashioned a man, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. And behold, this man, unlike any of the other living things, was made in the image and likeness of God. Here was God’s crowned creation, the reason he made all other things, to culminate and finish in man. This was all the work of the Word, which was with God and which was God, the Word bound to the Spirit of God and making all things, the Word, I say, creating at last man in his own image.

And so it was that in the fullness of time, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The Word, now at last fashioned as the very image and likeness of God, the Word, who in the image of God was first foreseen in Adam, the Word, who from the beginning had intended this, that he should become one with his creation, the Word which first shined in the darkness, the Word, which was Let there be light, and there was light.

And nothing could dissuade the Word from his aim, nothing could render it ruined. For the Word was God, and with God nothing shall be impossible. So nothing could stand in his way: not a disobedient man and his wife, not a ruined Garden, not a world then filled with a history of darkness and ruin and horror and terrors and wickedness and murder and death.  Nothing could stand in his way. For the word was, Let there be Light, and there was light, and the light shines. The darkness and the void of the world at the first could not stop this, nor can any darkness today stop it: no sin, no terrors in the way, no orders that all the world should be taxed, no cold Bethlehem night without lodging, no murderous Herod, no cruelty, no corruption, no thievery, no brutality, no disasters, no sickness, no pandemics, no mortality, no death, no grave. Nothing could stop this from happening, for the Word was Let there be light, and there was light. Behold, there was light, because the Word was, Let there be light! And so it was that the light of the world became flesh: the Word himself became flesh. He came down from heaven, to rescue a world enshrouded in darkness and misery and sin and death. He came down to us, as it is written, Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.

Or did you think righteousness was unattainable? Did you think Adam’s fault was too great to be undone? Did you think sin and guilt were too great? Did you think mankind must at last be excluded? For all we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way. So did you think it too much to be atoned? Did you think the darkness was too deep, too great, too overwhelming? For, alas, how overwhelming it sometimes seems to be, and how bitterly we sometimes come to lamentation and grief and sorrow! Did you think your tears must forever flow? Did you think there is gloom and despair and terrors that await us in the end? Did you think the darkness was too deep, too great, too overwhelming? Did you think it too much for the righteousness of God to undo? Did you think he had somehow lied when he said, Let there be light? But God cannot lie, for he is the Truth. And thus when he said, Let there be light, there was light! For God alone is true, and every man a liar. And the righteousness of God has come to earth, when the Word became flesh. And in beholding his glory, that is, in believing that he is  the Christ, the Son of God, you shall have life through his name; for his righteousness shall fill you and drive away all unrighteousness and sin and darkness.

Fall on your knees, O man! Turn from the darkness. Turn to the Light which lighteth every man. Turn to it, for it is Christ your Lord. See, look, behold his glory, for the Word became flesh: your flesh. Lying in a manger now to look upon. What did Mary see? What did the shepherds see? The ox and ass, the angels? What did they see? They saw their Maker, their God: they saw the Word that was God become flesh. And so has he adorned humanity with his deity, for he bound himself to it this happy Christmas day! O turn to the Light, for this is your Maker and your Savior.

This is where you were destined to be: bound to your Maker for all time and eternity. God was bound to man that man might be bound to God, and so be saved from all manner of darkness and death. The sin of the world is taken away because there is no sin in God, and thus when the Word became flesh and took upon himself all of our fallenness, and swallowed our sins, and so died, still even then, nothing could stop him. He had to rise from the dead, for he is the Word, and the word was Let there be light, and the light shines in the darkness.  For in him is no darkness at all.

And thus do the departed saints now dwell in perpetual light, and thus shall we be destined also to dwell  there, and thus shall he return in glory and wrap the world in his marvelous light, and thus shall all good dash all wickedness to the ground, and thus shall even death be swallowed up in victory, because the Word was God, and the Word was, Let there be light, and there was light. Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation, sing all ye citizens of heaven above. Glory to God in the highest. O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord, the Word made flesh, the Light of the world.