Tuesday, March 15, 2005 Lenten Fast
Martyr Agapios of Palestine and Those With Him
6th Hour: Isaiah 1:19-2:3 1st Vespers: Genesis 1:14-23 2nd Vespers: Proverbs 1:20-33
Genesis 1:14-23, especially vs. 14: "And God said, Let there be lights in the
firmament of the heaven." Vladimir Lossky observes that the creation is "...a mystery as unfathomable as that of the divine
being, the mystery of the created being, the reality of a being external to any presence of God....in brief, the reality of the
'other-than-God.'" Consider three aspects of this mystery: the special role of God the Word in bringing the creation into
being, the place of light in the creation, and the interplay of light and water.
In two statements of the Nicene Creed we confess God the Father as "Creator of heaven and earth," and profess that by God
the Son "all things were made," affirming God's words in Genesis quoted above. God the Father wills there to be stars,
moon, sun, and planets; and God the Word brings them into being. In creation the Son of God reveals the nature of God
the Father as the primordial Cause of all that is created, He Himself being the Divine operative Agent.
God the Word brings into existence the desire of God the Father. Listen to Vladimir Lossky: "God, in order to create,
thinks creation, and this thought gives its reality to the being of things....By the divine Word the world is suspended over its
own nothingness, and there is one word for each thing, one word in each thing, which represents its norm of existence and
its way to transfiguration." Marvel at the creative power of God, moving from His thought into being!
In all creation, light was the first thing to be spoken into existence. God says, "Let there be light, and there was light" (vs.
3). The finite human mind wants to ask, "How can there be light without sources generating it? How day and night
without a sun?" Light, however, is the first order of the Word of God. As the Prophet Daniel discloses: God "...knoweth
what is in the darkness and the light dwelleth with Him" (Dan. 2:22). We are challenged, as was Job: "Where is the way to
the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place that you may take it to its territory, that you may know the paths to
its home?" (Job 38:19,20).
Light without source emanates from the Jerusalem above as revealed to St. John: "...The city had no need of the sun or of
the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it, and the Lamb is its light" (Rev. 21:23). Such light informs our
iconographers who depict no external source of light and therefore no shadows. God the Word, Who is Light, is not
Himself created. Light, rather, is among His energies. As the sun "creates" the light of the moon by reflection to our
physical eyes, so the Son creates light without a source. Where He is, light is.
Also, the Word of God creates the sources of light in the material universe (Gen. 1:14-19). On day five, the Lord, having
already gathered the waters under the heavens together in one place (vs. 9), now "lets" the waters abound with an
abundance of living creatures (vs. 20).
Turn the mind to this mystery which we express at the Feast of Theophany. At the Jordan, the Light enters the waters and
fills them with His blessing. Likewise, when we enter the Baptismal waters, Christ the Word "lets" His Light fill us. We
beseech Him that "we may be illumined by the light of understanding and piety, by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit," that
same Divine Spirit Who was hovering over the waters at the beginning of the creation (Gen. 1:2). It is right that we pray
for the baptismal waters, that they "...may prove effectual unto the averting of every snare of enemies, both visible and
invisible." That light and water are associated together in successive days in the Genesis creation account prepares the
heart and mind to receive these created realities into our spirits and souls and bodies.
O Lord, may we prove ourselves to be children of the Light, heirs of eternal good things, that the waters of regeneration
may be ever unto the remission of our sins and our salvation.
