The fourth "day" of creation
- HTLC & LCM
- Oct 2
- 5 min read
Our Lutheran Campus Ministry Sermon from October 1, 2025
Continuing our sermon series on the days of creation, here we reflect on the 4th day of creation from Genesis 1:14-19
Do any of y’all ever take time to look up at the sky throughout your day?
[Lots of students said yes!!]
Well, y’all are more in-tune than I am, because I hardly ever look at the sky.
In fact, I remember reading a book as a child that featured a kid riding a
dragon over the streets of some big city, and no one even noticed them.
Because no one was looking up at the sky!
For a couple weeks after reading that book, I tried to pay more attention to what was going on above me, hoping I might see a dragon or at least a cool cloud or something, but that practice didn’t last very long.
Now I go about most of my day, head down in my computer or my phone, under fluorescent lights, rarely noticing what is going on above my head.
The same was NOT true for our ancestors. At the time when Holy-Spirit-
inspired people began compiling the creation narrative we’ve been studying
the past few weeks, there were no fluorescent lights, or phones, or computers.
There wasn’t even electricity!! Their lives looked SO much different than
ours, that even if we try to imagine ourselves in their world, it’s pretty much
impossible.
The writers of Genesis didn’t have GPSes, so they relied on the lights in the
sky for directions. The sun, the moon, and the stars gave meaning to their
lives – even beyond what we think of when we download the co-star app or
look at our horoscope. Our ancestors looked at the sky and saw evidence of
divine communication.
And according to the writers of Genesis, God spoke the heavenly lights into
being for three reasons:
1. To give light upon the earth;
2. To be for signs and seasons and to rule over the day and night; and
3. To separate the day from the night, the light from the darkness.
This first reason is pretty intuitive – God created plants on the third “day” of
creation, according to this creation narrative, and those plants are going to
need some light to live! So bam. God created things to give light upon the
earth.
The second reason also makes sense from an observational perspective – our
ancestors saw the sun during the day and the moon at night. They noticed that
as constellations moved across the sky throughout the year, the seasons
changed. They inferred a lot of things about the future based on signs in the
sky, and even though we might dismiss them as unscientific, for our
ancestors, they were very very real.
But the third reason – to separate the light from the darkness…
Well, I thought God already did that?
On this fourth day, when God said: “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky
to separate the day from the night,” the narrator continues: “God set them in
the sky to separate the light from the darkness.”
But if y’all remember way back to the beginning, in Genesis 1:4, we learned
that “God separated the light from the darkness.”
So… Did it not stick the first time? What’s going on, here?
Today, we have a more nuanced understanding of night and day and darkness
and light. We know there isn’t a strict divide between day and night – just ask
any one of the LCMers who watches the sun rise on beach retreats.
And we also know now that darkness is actually good for the earth. Humans
sleep better in the dark (yay blackout curtains!) and some animals exclusively
live in the dark (like all those creatures at the bottom of the ocean).
But again, think back to the ancient humans who wrote this creation story. If
you lived 3,000 years ago, which is when biblical scholar estimate the book
of Genesis was being compiled, you didn’t know about anglerfish or blobfish
or the fact that darkness stimulates melatonin production in our brains to help
us sleep…
But what you did know as an ancient Israelite was that, at night, under the
cover of darkness, wild animals came out. Enemies attacked… Mostly bad
stuff happened when the sun went down!
There was no electricity or streetlamps or phone flashlights or anything. So
the darkness was complete and unsettling, and it returned, without fail, every
single night.
And so, I think it makes sense that people wanted some reassurance that God
was still at work separating the light from the darkness. Even today, in the
pitch black of night, we can find ourselves in need of a reminder that the sun
will rise.
Whether on the first day of creation or the fourth or on October 1, 2025, we
can find comfort in the fact that God is still bringing light into our unsettled
places of fear and shame and uncertainty.
Remember what the wise men followed to find the baby Jesus?
A star!
A star that led them to the place where the light of the world lay in a manger.
They followed a star to find our savior, Jesus Christ. Who came to bring light
and life into our places of fear and shame and uncertainty.
Discussion questions:
Who or what is a light in your life right now?
What can we learn about God through this “day” of creation?
Students’ responses to the first question included:
● Parents who will talk about faith
● Friends who are always there for us
● Spending time with children
● Friends who want to love us and spend time with us, even when we
make mistakes
● Live music
And the second question:
● There is a separation between resting and doing. On the seventh day,
God rested. And on the fourth day, God created the conditions
(darkness) for humans to rest each day.
● On the first day of creation, God said “let there be light.” And now,
God is defining the light.
● There seems to be a distinction between the light that God created in a
cosmological sense, and the light that humans are most familiar with
(sun, moon, stars).
● We are focusing in on what’s on earth, right in front of us.
Our ancestors looked at the sky and saw divine communication.
They looked at the stars and saw signs from a God who created them and called them
good. And even though we live in a world that is VASTLY different than the
world they lived in… the sun, the moon, and the stars can still remind us that
God will always be at work bringing light, justice, and new life into the
world.
I’d like to close our sermon time with this prayer from Jan Richardson:
God of the two lights,
I love the sun,
its revealing brilliance,
its lingering warmth;
but in the dark of night,
let me learn the wisdom of the moon,
how it waxes and wanes but does not die,
how it gives itself to shadow,
knowing it will emerge whole once more.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
And as a brief side-note, if this ancient cosmology stuff has been interesting
to you, I have a fun podcast recommendation from the Bible Project. They
did an eight-part series on cosmology and the creation narratives in Genesis
1&2, and you can find it here:
I’m working my way through the series now!
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