Lights in the Vault: Genesis 1:14-19

God spoke into the expanse: "Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth."

And the heavens ignited.

The sun blazed into existence—a nuclear furnace of unimaginable power, ninety-three million miles away, yet close enough to warm skin and ripen fruit. The greater light to govern the day, hanging in the vault of sky like a burning throne.

The moon rose to govern the night—silver and cool, reflecting borrowed glory, pulling tides and marking months, a nightlight for a world that would soon need comfort in the darkness.

And the stars.

Billions upon billions of them, scattered across the vault of heaven like seeds flung from a divine hand. Galaxies wheeling in the deep. Nebulae blooming with colors no human eye would see for millennia. Distances so vast that light itself would take years to cross them—all of it spoken into existence as almost an afterthought: "He also made the stars."

The cosmos had been lit. The calendar had begun. Days and seasons, years and ages—all of them now measurable by the lights God had hung in the sky.

And God saw that it was good.

And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

The stage was set. The lights were on. But the actors had not yet arrived.