Before the Beginning

In the beginning, when God created the world, he said, “let light be.”

The beginning is not the beginning of all things. It is the beginning of the world.

There is a before before the beginning.

Before God created the world, there was a wind from God that swept over the face of the waters.

Before the beginning, there was formless substance that Genesis calls “the earth.”

It is what will become the earth and all planets and suns.

Before the beginning there was darkness.

Before the beginning there was the deep.

Before the beginning, there was God.

 

Before the beginning there was God and darkness, there was the deep and formless substance and water.

 

Darkness covered the deep.

 

Darkness is cast as a substance, as thing, not as the absence of light; it exists when light is not, but it does exist. This is not like the darkness we call darkness, which is not just the absence of light but the absence of eyes to see when light is present.

 

Darkness is eternal. It can be pierced by light, held back like water by a dam like an invading army by a shield-wall, like waves by a sea wall, like sunlight by an umbrella. But whatever holds it back is temporary, time bound. Darkness is more patient than any wall, more patient than the ocean that breaks the sea wall or the army that breaks the shield-wall or the thick, stone, battlements of the castle of time. The siege of darkness is waiting for the fires of light to die for lack of fuel.

 

It takes but one candle to scatter the darkness. It took but one match to light the candle. The match was put out, the candle too will die. The sun may rise before the candle dies, but the sun too will die. All suns will die. And then darkness and the deep. Unless God.