Click this link to hear an audio version of the below text narrated by SOTH member Jerry Rhinehart:
Genesis 1:1-5 (NIV)
The Beginning
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
John 1:1-5 (NIV)
The Word Became Flesh
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
When Jesus tells Christians that they are the “light of the world”, he is using one of the most important images in the Bible. It begins with the Bible’s first words, in Genesis 1. When God makes the world, light is the first thing made, the foundation of creation. In John, we learn how this light was actually Christ, and he is the light which no darkness can overcome. When we cling to Christ, the truth he brings, and the love that he gives, we experience the joy of light, no matter how dark our problems are.