a difference in our darkness

devotions from Jefferson Vann # 2370

John 1:1-5

Joh 1:1 At first there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Joh 1:2 He was with God at first.
Joh 1:3 Everything else was created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.
Joh 1:4 Life was in him, and that life was humanity’s light.
Joh 1:5 That light is now shining in the darkness, and yet the darkness has not overcome it.

a difference in our darkness

John’s story is ultimately a story about God stepping toward us when we had no ability, and honestly no desire, to step toward Him. He begins by reminding us that our Creator is the source of all existence. Everything that lives, breathes, thinks, or moves does so because His life sustains it. Yet John refuses to let us reduce this to a cold theological fact. He wants us to feel the wonder: the One who brought galaxies into being did not remain distant or indifferent. Existence itself was not enough for Him. Love compelled Him to come closer.

John describes God as the One who dwells in “unapproachable light,” a realm so holy and radiant that no creature could survive it. By contrast, humanity lives in darkness—not merely the darkness of ignorance, but the darkness of rebellion, confusion, and spiritual blindness. John wants us to sense the vast, unbridgeable distance between the God who is pure light and the people who have chosen shadows. It is not simply a moral gap; it is an existential chasm. We were made by Him, yet we drifted far from Him.

But then John announces the miracle: God Himself crossed the distance. The light did not stay far away. It pierced the darkness. It took on flesh. It walked among us. The life that has always been with the Father stepped into our world so that we could see it, hear it, touch it, and be changed by it. The light did not merely expose our darkness; it illuminated a path out of it. His presence among us was not symbolic. It made a real difference. Where He walked, darkness retreated. Where He spoke, confusion dissolved. Where He touched, death itself lost its grip.

John’s message is not simply that God is shining, but that His shining is for us. The light is not a distant blaze on the horizon; it is a lamp placed in our night, a sun rising over our broken world. The Creator who once spoke light into existence has now spoken Himself into our darkness, and nothing is the same.

LORD, thank you for sharing Your light in our dark universe. Shine it again in us today.