The following post was placed at NPR's Science Friday's forum and it has troubled me greatly:

Message Subject: march 12th hubble ultra deep field
Posted By: physics101
Date: Wednesday, March 31 at 1:12 p.m.

on the march 12th Hubble Ultra Deep Field segment a question was asked
by a caller, which is something I have pondered and have never had
successfully answered. The scientist on the show obviously didn't
understand the caller's question. He wanted to know how it is possible
to see light from stars that are 13.2 or so billion light years away.
If we started at the same point and matter can't travel the speed of
light how has the initial light of stars 13.2 billion years ago not
passed us. We would have to be very near where we are now 200,000,000
years after the big bang in order for light that old to reach us and
not already have passed us. Unless we started inflation near the speed
of light and the net speed of light is so low that it could take that
long, however, there would still be a limit. In addition wouldn't that
make the "Big Rip" theory impossible. We would already be breaking up.
Since the universe is accelerating still and in order to see the light
of a star 13.2 billion light years away, and space is inflating at
close to the speed of light, then the stars must be nearly 26.4
billion light years away now, or they were 6.6 billion light years
away when the light was emitted and scientists are just doing the math
and the star is 13.2 billion light years away, but the light was
emitted 6.6 billion years ago and we guestimate the distance the star
would be now. the star has traveled immense distances beyond 13.2
billion light years away since the light we are now seeing from it was
emitted. What makes this more confusing is how can we see light or
CMBR 300,000 years after the big bang. We would have to almost
instantaneously reposition to where we are now, or be traveling
(inflating)over 99% the speed of light. This also applies even if the
earth and the other object our heading away from eachother netting a
speed close to the speed of light. Sorry for being so verbose.

Thanks

My reply to the above post was that it must be the case that the light
we see now IS NOT in fact thirteen plus billion years old. Instead,
this must be a incorrect (albeit widely held) viewpoint not unlike the
belief that the Great Wall of China is the only man made object that
can be viewed from space. Can someone give me an alternative
explanation that I can understand?