Time and Space (two separate things) are permanently linked by a mathematical formula. Einstein figured this out and the rest, as they say, is History. These became part of the Relativity Theory that we are now so familiar with today.
Space, although you think it is empty (vacuum) is in fact made up of various fields. One of these being the electro-magnetic field (which is how light travels through space), and another of the fields (for interest sakes) is the Higgs Field (which gives atoms their mass). There are other fields which you can investigate as well. So space is NOT empty per se.
Light cannot go faster than circa 299m Kms/s through this electro-magnetic field. And we know based on mathematics that some light has been travelling to us from galaxies that are further than 6000 light years away.
Science has started calling space and time the
FABRIC of SPACE TIME. The fabric being the fields which hold everything together. If we were to look at the scriptures we see very interesting comments made about this:
Psalm 104
2 Who cover
Yourself with light as
with a garment,
Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain.
Looking very much like a fabric to me, how about you?
Job 9
He alone spreads out the heavens,
And [
b]treads on the [
c]waves of the sea;
So, we cannot know all of this for sure, but we could speculate that God was able to stretch out the heavens at creation allowing for such great distances to be achieved without us having to wait for the light to reach us. Like blowing up a balloon. Or stretching an elastic band.
One day we will know, because we can ask Him.