First the Darkness

I remember the day like yesterday, though it must have been 7-8 years ago.

It was a warm summer morning. I and some of our family and team had been up since 4:00 AM out in the pasture at our mobile butchering wagon. Working together once a week harvesting a flock of about 500 organic pastured broiler chickens is always a highlight. As usual, we had a great time of camaraderie, discussion and singing, and the hours passed quickly.

Somewhere around 10:00 AM maybe, when my part of the flock processing was pretty well wrapped up for the day and I was onto other things, I breezed through The Family Cow office where Emily Zook, another of our girl team, was working at the computer.

As I entered I called out a cheery "Good afternoon Emily." She looked at me funny, laughed and said, "It's still morning, Edwin!" And so it was. But with it being about the 6th hour for me, it felt like it should be somewhere mid-afternoon.

It was sort of an understandable mistake and I could have just let it go at that, yet I, ever the one looking for a witty comeback retorted, "Hey! Give me a break...I'm just having a Genesis day. It's backwards, you know! Genesis always puts the evening first... It says the evening and the morning was the first day."

We both laughed and knew I was just making lame excuses for my absentmindedness. But it started me thinking.

Why does God's Word in Genesis 1 present each new creation day as "the evening and the morning were the first day, second day and so on...?" Genesis 1:v5,v8,v13 etc. Was it more than just KJV awkwardness? Was there a reason for this seemingly backwards order? Maybe an intentional God reason? Was there deliberate spiritual symbolism perhaps hidden in this night-before-day pattern? I had never given it much thought. But now I was.

Please allow me to share some of what came to me. I will not flesh this out totally because you’ll quickly see the pattern and can have your own meditations.

The first thing that came to mind was... Yes! The whole earth was dark and empty BUT then, God said, "Let there be light: and there was light." (Gen 1:3)

So the order was real. The order was true. It's actually how it was... the evening and the morning was the first day. The darkness was first, then the light. The rest of the creation week was recorded this way also. The evening and night is always mentioned first, and then comes the day.

Next it occurred to me was that the Hebrew calendar was also set up (and in fact still is) so that each new day begins at sundown (around 6:00 PM). So each Hebrew day starts with the dark. Hmm... interesting... I wonder if all of the ancient world was set up that way and did the concept of 'night first then day' being the normal order stem from the order of dark first then light of creation?

Somewhere in my ponderings I was struck by something powerful.

"You know what? All new life starts first with darkness!"

Human life... in the dark of conception in the womb of the mother... But then at birth comes the light. In Spanish, the term for giving birth is 'dar a luz' which literally translates to 'give light.' The child has been brought from out of the darkness into the light when its mother has 'dado a luz.' She has given light to a child. But the darkness came first.

And of course, new plant life also germinates first in the dark, underground... but, powered by the new life force from within, it soon pushes its way upward and enters the world of light. The Kingdom of light! But the dark is first. It fits the pattern. I started getting excited. It seems this pattern IS a God thing!

Chills went up my spine.

And I'm sure you feel it too... spiritually this fits perfectly!

Isn't it just like our God to deliberately slip spiritual truths for us to discover into the very design of even his material world!

When Jesus came into the world, St. Matthew, referencing Isaiah, said of him: "The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up." Matthew 4:16 & Isaiah 42:7

Paul later adds: "For God, who commanded the (creation) light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6

And Peter, speaking to the new believers "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a special people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:" 1 Peter 2:9

Always darkness first, then light...

Is it any wonder that the beginning of spiritual life, spiritual belief, spiritual awakening is called a NEW BIRTH? Our journey starts in the darkness, the overpowering oppressive darkness like all births, but then One 'gives light' to us. 'Dar a luz!' Yes, exactly!

First the darkness, then the light. It fits the pattern... It's the God pattern. It's the new creation pattern. It's the pattern of new life. The eternal pattern of new hope.

Our periods of darkness (you have yours, I have mine, we understand each other) do not signal the end of our day... It can be just the beginning of a new one.

Your Mennonite Christian farmer friend,

Edwin Shank

"Intensely striving to be... A follower of Jesus indeed... In whom there is no guile"

Then said Jesus unto them, "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."  - John 8:12