Sermon preached at Kirwan Uniting Church 4 January 2026

Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 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.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he 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.

Revelation 22:1-5

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

John 1:1-14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

This is the Gospel of the Lord

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ

+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit

In the beginning.

Dylan Thomas’ narrator starts Under Milk Wood, “To begin at the beginning”.

Dave Allen said “In the beginning there was nothing. God said ‘Let there be light!’ There was still nothing, but now you could see it.”

The creation stories in Genesis are beloved of charlatans like Australia’s own Ken Ham on the one hand, and unbelievers on the other who use the stories’ scientific unlikelihood to bash Christianity. Neither camp approaches those opening chapters understanding their purpose. Genesis 1, like much of the bible, isn’t a historical record answering the questions “When?” - History anyway is bunk according to Henry Ford, and someone else said that “history is what didn’t happen written by people who weren’t there”. Nor is it a cosmology or biology textbook answering the question “How?” It is metaphor answering the questions “Why and What?” And later, as the sweep of salvation’s narrative unfolds, it answers the question “Who?”

Faced with darkness, personal or geopolitical, feeling powerless in the face of chaos and an impersonal void, I want to know what God is doing, is he at work in the world, why is this happening to me? And then why should the Holy Spirit choreograph the events described in the poetry of Genesis 1? Yes, God was at work. In that chaos and entropy, in the formlessness and emptiness, the writer instead of panicking like Lance Corporal Jones in the Dad’s Army TV comedy series , calmly introduces “The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters”. Note the past imperfect. This was no kneejerk reaction to a crisis, the solution of good, of light, had been implemented before the evil of darkness was even described. That’s the why which I need to take away in my own circumstances, that however at sea I seem to be, the Spirit of God is hovering over the turbulent waters of my life. Has been hovering all this time, undiscerned by me. My faithlessness or gormlessness doesn’t inhibit God’s spirit. And sometimes in a blinding flash, or more often in a slow and gradual dawning, God says let Richard have light. And there is light.

Even the choice of light as a vector of grace answers a why question. This is the church’s season of epiphany, recalling the journey undertaken by wise men from the East to find and worship the infant Jesus, born King of the Jews. Why should Matthew make such a point of the star? Because the light from that star, even if it were in our own galaxy, might have taken billions of light years to reach those Zoroastrian astrologers. The spirit of God was already hovering over the waters, the light was already shining in the darkness aeons before the Wise Men’s walk-on part in the drama of redemption. God has already intervened in history, it will just take some time for us to catch up with the dénoument.

Why light? Who is the Light? In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. We trace Christ’s part in the drama to the Cross, and then to its annual memorial during Holy Week, and its more regular memorial however often we have a communion service. 2,000 years, not long. But God the Word, God the Son, was there just like God’s hovering Spirit and God’s summoned light at the beginning of time, if time has or had a beginning. “He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” The Elders in Revelation 4 worshipping like Matthew’s Magi ““You are worthy, our Lord and God,

to receive glory and honour and power,

for you created all things,

and by your will they were created

and have their being.”

Why? St Paul says that the last enemy which shall be destroyed is death. St John says that in the Word, in Christ, is Life and that Life is the Light of Men. Like the hovering spirit over the waters, like the commanded light at the dawn of creation, Life is already present before death comes on the scene. Its light shines in the darkness of even death which can’t overcome it. Death cannot keep his prey, Jesus my Saviour, he tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord. My light and my salvation.

Just as the beginning story is metaphor because we can’t take in an indescribable divine cosmology, so the ending story, the book of Revelation must be. It has to be. Paul says no ear has heard, no eye seen, it hasn’t even entered in to the cleverest human minds the glory, the goodness which God has in store for us. So John on Patmos has to revert to imagery to convey what God has revealed by his Spirit. And as our story kicked off with God summoning light to battle darkness, so this temporary part ends for us “There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.”

Here’s John Donne’s take:

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening

into the house and gate of Heaven,

to enter into that gate and dwell in that house,

where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light;

no noise nor silence, but one equal music;

no fears or hopes, but one equal possession;

no ends or beginnings, but one equal eternity,

in the habitations of thy glory and dominion,

world without end.