Seeing The Light

Genesis 1:3 declares the majestic creation of light, “And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light.” God spoke four words and billion of stars came into existence! My words seem so empty compared to that. And those four words continue to have an amazing impact on the universe!

We tend to think of creation as something that occurred in the past. But a series of discoveries that led to a phenomenon known as the Doppler Effect has produced evidence that it appears the universe is still expanding. In other words the studies of men like Christian Doppler, Richard Tolman, and Edwin Hubble indicate that "Let their be light" is an ever-present command that continues to shape the light-given bodies of our universe. God hasn’t stopped creating!

Physics is primarily a study of things you can't see. The laws of gravity and centrifugal force produce results that we can observe, but you can't see gravity or momentum. Physics is a science of the invisible: quarks, magnetic fields, and gravitational forces. And this week, we are going to explore the amazing creation of light and how it is relevant to our lives as Christians.

Arthur Zajonc wrote in his book Catching The Light: The Entwined History of Light and the Mind about about a fascinating experiment called Project Eureka. Zajonc and a friend carefully fabricated a box and positioned a powerful projector to shine light into the box. They designed the box so that it wouldn’t illuminate any objects in the box or the surfaces of the box. So within the box was pure light. However, when they looked inside the box, they didn't see pure light. They saw absolute darkness! You see, light is invisible! It is ironic that the thing that enables us to see can not be seen.

I mean think the pictures you have seen of space above the earth's atmosphere. Even though the sun shines all through "space", you cannot see any light. The sun’s light is everywhere, but it can only be seen when it is illuminating something.

What we see is reflected light. When white light hits a blue object, all the colors are absorbed by the object except blue. The blue is reflected back to your eyes. White objects reflect all of the light. Black objects absorb all of the light.

It is a difficult concept to imagine and explain, but light is always present yet it is always illusive! It is invisible, yet it illuminates everything. We can’t see it but you cannot see anything without it!

Does it remind you of anything? Let me give you a hint: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for(A) and certain of what we do not see." Tomorrow, we will be looking at the Light of God, and our responsibility to reflect His light to the world.