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If I understand what scientists say about the beginning of things, about 15,000 million years ago, all matter and energy were compressed into a relatively small, compact ball.

Seven Days With God: Day One: God Adds Light - Genesis 1: 1-5 - July 8, 2007 -

Cicero United Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett

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If I understand what scientists say about the beginning of things, about 15,000 million years ago, all matter and energy were compressed into a relatively small, compact ball.

Imagine holding the lid on a pressure cooker - and multiply that by billions - that's the force that must have been inside that ball that contained everything. Then, suddenly, the pressure was too great - the ball exploded. Scientists call it the Big Bang. If you saw fireworks this past week, and you went Ooooh! and Aaaah! because it was so impressive, imagine if you had seen that first Big Bang where the whole universe exploded outward with such force, that 15 billion years later, it is still expanding. That's bow scientists explain the beginning of things.

There are some religious people who say that the Big Bang theory contradicts our faith. But I don't see it that way. I figure that if there is a Supreme Being who could pack everything in this universe into a small ball of energy, and then let it go, and then create monarch butterflies and ruby-throated hummingbirds out of that explosion, then that Supreme Being has earned every bit of my worship and respect.

Out of that explosion, millions of years later, came the ball of energy we call the sun. And around that sun spun a little particle of matter we call the planet earth. And on that planet, people were placed. And eventually there was a group of people who experienced an amazing act of God - the sea parted so they could go out of slavery, and find a Promised Land they believed God had set aside for them. And then after many ups and downs in that Land, they found themselves captured and exiled to a place called Babylon.

The people of Babylon had given some thought to how the world was created, and this is what they came up with: Two gods, Marduk and Tiamat, had a big battle. Marduk won the battle, and killed Tiamat. Then be divided her carcass in two, and made the earth out of it. One morning this week, Sharon and I went out running, and we ran by a carcass, and I can assure you it is no place I want to live.

And neither did the Hebrew people. When they heard the Babylonian creation story, it simply didn't bear any resemblance to what they understood about God. They wanted their children to learn something different. And it may be an historical stretch, but it makes some sense to imagine that the beautiful creation story we find in the first chapter of the Bible grew out of that concern. Whether it happened right away, or after centuries of telling the stories of creation, somebody - probably a group of well-educated priests - wrote down the words of Genesis I. We would call them backwards when it came to science. They didn't have our sophisticated understandings of how the universe works.

But they were geniuses when it came to faith. They had an intimate understanding of God, and they gave that as a precious gift to the world. And that intimate understanding is what they wanted to convey in their beautiful rendition of the seven days of creation.

In my sermons this summer, t want to ce1ebrate those seven days, and lift up the special gift that those priests who wrote this story were celebrating on each day. Here is how they depicted Day One:

"In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then 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, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day."

So, the first act of creation was to create light. Creating light first makes sense, because if you are going to talk about seven days, first you have to create time. And since there were no Timex or Fossil watches handy, light and dark marked the passage of time. But light is so much more than that. Light is the bringer of life to plants and animals. Nature is in tune with light; animals panic and hide during an eclipse. Humans (especially in places like Central New York) suffer the effects of sunlight deprivation; we need light. Plants follow the sun across the sky. Heat and energy come from light. All of this was well understood millions of years before Einstein wrestled with particle theory versus wave theory, and before we understood the power of laser beams, and of nuclear fission. We live, we measure, we travel, we fight, we play, we thrive; we heal - all by the power of light. The importance of light to us came into focus for me with a statement I read: "Light is all our eyes can really see," So what God added to creation on that very first day is the very possibility of seeing and living.

Given this reality that is interwoven into our very existence, it is only natural that light is one of the powerful and recurring images in the Bible. The writer of Psalm 27 begins, "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?" The prophet Isaiah wrote, "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you... Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn." The apostle John wrote, "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin." It seems like God's first act of creation presents us with an ongoing choice - we can be people who walk in light -- without fear, and filled with hope -- or we can be people who walk in darkness.

Perhaps the ultimate teaching about light comes from Jesus himself. It is the great teaching of the Sermon on the Mount that tells us, "You are the light of the world. . . Let your light so shine before others that they might see your good works, and glorify your father who is in heaven." And here is the thought I hope every one of us will take out of here this morning - you are part of the first and greatest thing God did in this world. That commanding of light to go forth - the great act that made everything else possible - God is still doing. And the main way he is doing it is through people like you and me who make a decision to be part of the light rather than the darkness.

One of my favorite signs of summer is the appearance of the fireflies. The field behind our house is incandescent with them this year. The firefly, I read, has a substance called luciferin built into its cells - and it has the ability to combine this luciferin with oxygen and produce light, which, it turns out, is like Old Spice or eHarmony for fireflies. The lady fireflies love it. (Let's face it - if you've got luciferin, and can shine your own light, that's pretty impressive on a first date.)

But here's what Jesus wants us to know. We do shine a light. We have the greatest light in the world - God's light - built into us. And we can shine that light, that image, in out lives. And it's through us, shining God's light, that the first dramatic act of creation continues to bring hope and life into this world. God is still saying, "Let there be light," but now He's saying it to you and me, and hoping we'll carry it out. Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote about the lamplighter he saw walking from lamppost to lamppost to start the evening firelight. He wrote, "I'm watching a man make holes in the darkness." And I love that image, because I have known people like that - people whose words and deeds were able to make holes in the darkness.

Let me give an example or two: There have been a flurry of letters to the editor lately about the homeless people who hold the signs and stand begging for money at the busy street corners in the city. One woman wrote that she knew it wasn't wise to just give the people money, because she has no clue what she is buying with that money. So what she did was go to the store and buy a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of jelly, a plastic knife, and she handed the bag out her car window to the man. For me, that lady is making holes in the darkness of this world. Or I think of a woman I knew who battled with painful illness; and she was one of the kindest and most Christ-like people I have ever known; her witness to others about the power of faith touched more lives than she could ever know. I listened to her once talk about the philosophy of her life. It was, "Cast a light instead of a shadow." I believe she lived that beautifully. I have seen many others who I would call shining lights in this world, the way Jesus called all of us to be.

God calls nations to be lights in this world. The scripture lesson we read from the

Jesus was a very popular one in the early days of our nation, when the images of America being a 'city set on a hill~, or a 'light shining before the nations~ appear again and again in sermons and other writings. Surely the ideals of freedom and rights, based on the dignity and worth of every human being, are lights that can still make holes in the darkness of this dark and hungry world. We know there are deep flaws in America, and deep problems that seem to keep on; we know that we lose our way a lot as a nation, especially when we focus on fear and false pride and blind patriotism, to the detriment of wisdom and truth and humility. But still, we lift up the good ideas that undergird our national life, and keep hope burning that these may be what we stand for again in this world. The birthday of our nation is an important time for this reflection, and hopefully there were fervent prayers for God's guidance mixed in with the fireworks and sparklers.

We have seen so much that is fearful and dark and discouraging, and it just keeps coming. Every day the news brings another load of darkness. It is so easy to just close up our hearts and conclude that the darkness has won. But don't believe it, not for a minute! We have a God who creates light, and this is still His world. We have a Savior who shines a light even from a place as dark as the cross. And all around you in these pews are people who are punching holes in the darkness by the way they live and the things they say and do and the love that flows from God through them. And every one of us can reflect an image that is full of hope and truth and peace, because we have the light of God built into us. We choose whether to be people of light or of darkness, and I don't know about you, but to me there is only one choice possible - I want to be part of this great thing God is doing. I want my life - everything I say, everything I do, where I put my time and energy and money and passion - all of it - I want it to reflect the light of

God. And I thank God to be here where so many of you have made that choice as well.

But we choose again every day. And you know how it can be. You get up; you're not feeling 100%, it's a cloudy day, you got challenges ahead of you, it's and same old, same old. And yet, even in that darkness, you make a choice - today I will cast shadows, or today I will cast the light of God. If you choose the second, you have joined forces with the most powerful force in the universe. You have joined forces with your Creator, and decided to live out the greatest affirmation ever put into words, by the Son who was specially sent by God just to tell you - You are the light of the world.