"Let There Be Light"

In the Book of Genesis, Chapter 1 verse 3 God says, “Let there be light," and there was light. God then separated the light from the darkness, calling the light Day and the darkness Night.” This initial light was distinct from the sun, moon, and stars,

which were created on the fourth day. 

The Qur’an also mentions the creation of light in Surah 6 Chapter 1: "Praise be to

God, Who created the heavens and earth and made the darkness and the light..."

Photo by Matt Houghton on Unsplash

Hindu scripture also mentions the creation of light in “The Nasadiya Sukta” (which is the creation hymn in the Rig Veda). It describes a time of darkness and chaos before creation, where even the concepts of day and night did not exist. It speaks of a warm cosmic breath and a watery chaos, and then the emergence of something from the void which was light.

Nearly all indigenous peoples have oral traditions that describe the creation of light. As just as one example, a Polynesian myth illustrates the separation of light and darkness by describing a child of the original parents (who were heaven and earth). The child pushed the parents apart, allowing light to enter the world.

And just about every religious myth about the creation of light is not just a physical phenomenon, but the myths also say light symbolizes knowledge, wisdom, purity, goodness and the presence of the holy – defined in so many different ways by the world’s religions.

In other words, human beings throughout history have acknowledged the importance of light for life and humans have seen light as a product and presence of the divine. Now this seems pretty logical. Life – at least on the surface of the earth could not exist as it is without light. It is true some life forms do exist without light. There are so-called extremophiles that live far down in the depths of the ocean and deep in underground land caverns. These creatures receive energy from other sources such as subterranean vents and various chemical reactions.

But all surface ocean and land creatures from bacteria to human beings ultimately get their energy from light which comes from the sun. Light powers us. Bacteria and plants take in the sun’s energy which is light and convert it into other forms of energy which allows them to live. Higher animals eat the plants and get that energy from the sun and it goes further up the food chain all the way to human beings. That very special cuisine you really love ultimately provides energy provided by light from the sun. So next time you have a great pizza – you can lick you lips and says, “Wow, that was some great light.”

So, just where does light come from? OK – most people realize the sun gives off light and most people know that our sun is a star. By the way – most people don’t realize our sun has a name. It’s not “sun” and it’s not “star.” Our sun’s name is “Sol.” Hence earth and the planets live in the Sol-ar System. Other stars have different names. The brightest star in the sky is Sirius. If Sirius and its smaller companion star have planets around them they are correctly called the Sirius system – not a solar system.

Our sun is just the right size, and earth is located at just the right distance from Sol to have enabled life to exist on earth. There are seven different types of stars, but our star is an average star with a pretty long lifespan – about 10 billion years. Our star is now about 5 billion years old, which has been long enough for life and humans to have evolved. Some other stars are much bigger and have shorter lives and therefore – probably no life on the planets around them. And there are stars that are smaller and don’t generate enough light energy to enable life to exist unless their planets are closer to the star.

What happens that powers our star and all other stars is nuclear fusion which is when two hydrogen atoms moving around at extreme speeds because of the force of gravity deep in the star– collide and make a helium atom. This fusion gives off a huge amount of energy and the process creates photons which are particles of light. It also gives off radiation. After up to a million years, that light created in the center of our star eventually makes its way to the surface of the sun and 8 minutes later it finds its way to earth. So does deadly radiation but the perfect makeup of our atmosphere filters out most of the deadly radiation. (BTW – nuclear fusion is

the answer to unlimited energy, which is environmentally safe and just this year, major strides have been made in creating this type of energy.)

I want us to stop and think about all this for a moment. Our star is just a perfect sized star, and our earth is perfectly located around our star to provide the ideal location for life on earth to exist. (The other planets in our solar system are not well located for life. It is possible we may find primitive life on one of the planets in our solar system or their moons, but it is very unlikely that it will be advanced life. And remember – there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the world combined. Just imagine this!

And our atmosphere and the magnetic field surrounding the earth are just perfect enough to allow light energy through the atmosphere to help create and enable life to exist, and at the same time, prohibit deadly radiation from making it impossible for life to thrive. Indeed, this is all something to marvel at and something we take

for granted all the time. Just like I have mentioned in past sermons, physicists point out that there are 26 constants in the universe that are identical everywhere. Constants like the speed of light and the mass of atomic particles – a total of 26. And – as scientists point out - if just one of these 26 constants were only modified by a miniscule fraction – our universe and, of course, all life, would not exist. (Supercomputers have proven this.)

This too is something we take for granted and this is something to think about as we develop our own personal spirituality and realize just how marvelous life is. Our universe, our earth, and our own life is very, very special – some would say miraculous indeed. As some scientists say – the universe, and our earth are fined tuned for us to exist.

One more thing which we will look at later. The light that we humans see is on what is called the electromagnetic spectrum. The light we can see on the spectrum is only a small sliver of all the various other types of energy on this spectrum. We can’t see or sense all the other energies, but they are there. In fact, some animals can see and sense more than we humans can. We use other types of energy on the lectromagnetic spectrum such as the energy that provides electricity, powers our cell phone and microwave ovens. What causes all the energies on the electromagnetic spectrum to be different is their frequency and their wavelength.

And by the way – colors are created because different objects absorb some but not all of the light energy hitting them and our eyes interpret the reflected light energy as colors – which is why at night everything appears gray or black. There is little or no light, therefore, no color at night. And – there are millions more colors than our eyes and brains can perceive. Just image that. Remember what I frequently say – what we perceive as reality is really limited and is, in fact, an illusion created by our brain and our senses.

Eastern religions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism have long suggested that ultimate reality if far from what our senses can see or understand. In Hinduism, for example, the concept of Maya indicates there is a veil which limits our senses and prevents us from seeing that we are part and parcel of Brahman – which is ultimate

reality; that all things in the universe are interconnected. This idea is kind of like our UU principle of the “interdependent web of all existence.” Brahman is imbedded in all things in the universe, including, you and me. Hindu’s say that ultimate reality – Brahman – is beyond what humans can understand but it is within all of us. Curiously, Jesus apparently said the same thing according to the Gospel of Luke Chapter 17 when he said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

Buddhism, as well, emphasizes that what we perceive as reality is in fact, an illusion. All things, according to Buddhists, are impermanent and actually part of an ultimate reality. This ultimate reality cannot be understood by most humans because of human desire which clouds our awareness of reality.

In both Hinduism and Buddhism, humans can reach a state of enlightenment which is called Moksha in Hinduism and Nirvana in Buddhism. This enlightenment is a merging with ultimate reality and can be realized through meditation and renunciation of desires. Hindus would call this merging with Brahman which they

also call God.

Since human beings have always recognized the importance of light – discussion of light is imbedded in all human religions. It is for this reason that a majority of ancient cultures and religions celebrated the winter solstice. This is the time when the sun reaches its minimum declination in the sky (in the northern hemisphere)

and it is the time of maximum daily darkness. The next day, after the solstice, the daylight hours gradually increase all the way to the spring equinox, in March, which is a moment of is equal day and equal night. After this the daylight becomes longer than darkness (except at the equator all the way to the Summer solstice

which is when light begins to recede again.)

As darkness progressed through the fall in ancient times, peoples really worried that darkness would keep increasing and that there was no guarantee – long days of light would return. This is why they offered sacrifices to plead with their sacred powers to return daylight. Otherwise, there was fear that death would come

because there would be only dangerous cold and no ability to farm for food which meant starvation. (Interestingly, people living near the equator didn’t worry about this because they did not experience this phenomenon.) (Polynesian cultures).

Although there is some scholarly debate, it seems pretty persuasive that early Christians established Christmas on December 25 th to help convert pagans to Christianity and to convince them that Jesus was somehow related to the winter solstice which was a powerfully importance event to ancient Europeans.

Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and some Buddhists celebrate Dawali which is also known as the Festival of Lights. Dawali celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance.

Humans intuitively know that light is very important for life, so we use it in metaphors for many things. We hear expressions such as: “you light up my life,.” “come into the light,” “She’s out like a light,” “there’s light at the end of the tunnel,” “in light of this,” “he finally saw the light.” In all these expressions, light is a positive thing.

Light is so important to all aspects of human life that we treat its absence as something very negative and that absence is darkness. We use expressions such as “she was in a very dark mood,” “he is showing his dark side,” “that was a shot in the dark,” “those were my darkest days.” Metaphorically, darkness is used to

portray ignorance, evil, sadness, aloneness and many more negative feelings and actions.

In our own personal lives, we can choose to be a person who projects light into the world around us or proliferate darkness. We all know people who do this. There are those who always seem to be moody and negative which is really a choice a person makes. Conversely, a person can be positive and light up the world around them and the people they encounter.

A few weeks ago, I was honored to attend the Celebration of Life for Eric Riley. At the ceremony, a number of people noted that Eric had an incredible smile that lit up the world around him. On the walls of the Tennis Club were many pictures of a smiling Eric. It was obvious from these pictures that Eric’s smile did light up the world around him. All of us can do the same if we can choose light over darkness. From a spiritual perspective, light also represents knowledge and wisdom and enlightenment and this is something we all can choose as well. Unfortunately, so many people in the world deliberately choose to remain ignorant of what is happening in the world around them. Sure – for lots of reasons, many people do not have the opportunity to complete a lot of education but that does not mean they cannot continue to learn, continue to “come into the light” as we might say. There are resources everywhere from libraries to a plethora of streaming documentaries available every day and there are media sources and so much more. In other words, most people have the ability and the resources to continue to learn throughout their life.

With all the access to knowledge all around us – very few people have no ability to learn and to continue to learn. And just because a person has a lot of education does not mean they know a lot. For reasons that are difficult for me to understand, so many people seem to have no interest in learning or continuing to learn

throughout their life. They refuse to come further into the light. This can affect their outlook on life, their relations with other people and, of course, their own spiritual growth.

As Unitarian Universalists we are all called to continue to learn – continue to grow in wisdom, in knowledge, and in our own spiritual awakening. In other worlds, we all called to continue to reach for the light throughout our life. This is what our principles call for. How sad it is for people to stop reaching for the light, stop

learning and growing all the days of their lives. The absence of light is darkness and living in darkness leads to all the negative things that the metaphors of darkness acknowledge. Darkness is ignorance.

The final words of the Buddha just before he passed away were – “Be a lamp unto yourselves.” What the Buddha meant by this was a call of everyone to expand their own inner wisdom and to enhance their own learning and spiritual awareness. The Buddha also meant for everyone to follow their own path by looking inward at their own experiences and observations rather than blindly following those offered by others and to do this with a dedicated intention. This is what we can do here in this meeting house.

I’ll offer one more rather interesting if not fascinating commonality of light and that is what happens most of the time when people encounter a so-called “Near Death Experience or NDE.” An NDE is when someone – very often in an accident or in a surgical procedure clinically dies. In most cases, this means the person’s heart stops, they stop breathing, there is no measurable brain activity and there is a loss of brainstem reflexes. In other words, they are dead. Despite this apparent death, in an NDE, the person is revived and provides details on what has happened to them when they died. NDEs have been reported throughout all of human history

and in all cultures but only since the 1960s have they been scientifically studied. The events described in an NDE are the same in all cultures throughout the world.

In the 1960s, the Medical School at the University of Virginia established a Division of Perceptual Studies to analyze unusual phenomena such near death experiences, reincarnation and psychic activity. The results over more than half a century of scientific work are rather astounding to say the least.

Something like 80% of people who have a near death experience (anywhere in the world) report coming into an otherworldly light which gives them an overpowering feeling of warmth, love and compassion often accompanied by the presence of an ethereal being sometimes defined by the person’s particular culture and religion. Skeptical scientists attribute this phenomenon to oxygen deprivation, but this is a poor explanation because oxygen deprivation leads to confusion, poor awareness, disorientation and frightening hallucinations which are not the vivid and loving details described by people who have had an NDE.

Furthermore – some people who have experienced an NDE have been able to describe highly accurate details of what has been happening in the environment around them such as an operating room - even though they are not conscience. There is no scientific explanation for this.

So – do we all “come into the light” when we pass away? Near Death Experiencers would say yes? And nearly all people who experience an NDE report they are no longer afraid of death. So - what does this mean? Well – I think I will offer some thoughts on this in a future sermon.

Meanwhile – I will close with an analogy of a lighthouse. Lighthouses are built near treacherous shores which can endanger passing ships. I know them well from all my years at sea. Lighthouse keepers throughout history have been very special people. They had to be very vigilant to maintain their light and make sure it was burning brightly in the darkness of a stormy ocean night. They had to find strength in the solitude they often faced – finding the power of introspection and self-reflection – truly the ingredients of developing a power spiritual awareness.

By their actions in ensuring their lights shined brightly, lighthouse keepers offered a sense of safety, security and hope to the mariners who passed by – the crews of vessels often imperiled by the dangerous moods of the sea. These lessons from the life of a lighthouse keeper can inspire us all to be responsible, resilient, and compassionate individuals who can find strength in solitude and serve as a beacon of hope for others.

As the spiritual teacher Guy Finley said, “Nothing glows brighter than the heart awakened to the unseen light of love that lives within us.”

Reverend Christopher McMahon

UUMH

July 6th 2025