Beginnings are important. Backgrounds about characters in novels and movies help us see the situations that have shaped them. Sometimes we introduce ourselves by telling about our ancestors or about events that have shaped our family history. We recognize that who we are has a lot to do with the situations and the people who came before us.

Similarly, the Bible’s first words about the earth are that it was “formless and empty” and that “darkness was over the surface of the deep”—a poetic way of saying that the world did not exist before God started creating. Have you ever been in a cave without any lights on? It can be so dark that you can’t see your hands even when you touch your nose. The Bible begins with a darkness that is deeper than that. It’s the deepest darkness the Bible writers could imagine: the empty darkness of the world not existing.

As we begin Advent, looking forward to the light of Jesus’ coming, there is something very comforting about the Bible’s beginning. However heavy and impossible our current circumstances may feel, the Bible reminds us that our story begins with the God who creates life in the midst of the deepest darkness imaginable. In other words, with God there is always hope.