I remember my
grandfather telling us this story and including the
creation of things like unicorns and dragons into the story. He made it a story
of awe and wonder filled with visions of spinning galaxies and incredible
creatures, all created by an amazing God who loves diversity and beautiful
things. It reminds me that this is an origins story, a story of the God who is
behind the existence of this universe and all universes and everything in them.
It reveals to us who God is and what kind of a God he is.
“In the beginning,” what a great start, it takes us all the way back to when there was nothingness. We read that
“the earth was formless and void,” a good
translation, but the Hebrew can also be translated that “everything was chaos and the Spirit of God hovered over the
chaotic wasteland or wilderness.” When you translate it this way, you
get a better picture of what God is all about here; it’s about entering into
that chaos and creating order and beauty and wonder out of a wasteland.
How many people do
you know whose lives are filled with chaos, who feel as if they are
wandering aimlessly in a wasteland, looking for a way out, for a new beginning,
new hope, new life? The Bible and the Holy Spirit point us to God and Jesus as
the source of new beginnings, new life and hope. We get a picture of this in how
God goes about creating everything.
“Let there be light.” Light is key for life, a counter to darkness and a symbol of life and
hope, a guide in the darkness. Light is good, Jesus calls himself the “light of the world,” the source of hope in the world,
shining into our lives and the life if the world. God begins the process of
separating: light from darkness, water from water, and water from land. In a
chaotic life, separation is important: unhealthy from healthy, brokenness from
wholeness, self-desire from Jesus’ desire, old from new. The Spirit that hovers
about the chaos at the beginning is given to us by Jesus to lead us into new
life be separating us from the unhealthy in our lives, from the brokenness in
our lives, from self-desire into embracing Jesus’ desire for our lives filled
with health and wholeness.
The next part of
creating order and beauty out of chaos in filling the
land, air and water with life and light. “Then God
said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the
land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds… 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… Let the
water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the
vault of the sky… Let the land produce living creatures according to their
kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild
animals, each according to its kind.” Can you imagine the amazing sight
of empty land, water, and heaves filling with life, teeming with movement and
variety and sound? Everywhere you turn there are new creatures to discover, new
colours to see, new experiences to wonder at. Life is amazing and full and
abundantly delightful.
This is God’s
desire for you, this is why Jesus came, so that you might be filled
with living water and the bread of life. Jesus came and went to the cross so
that you can experience an abundance of hope, love, forgiveness, acceptance and
grace; that you might have life, and have it to the
full, as Jesus tells us in John 10. It’s not Jesus’ intention that you
wander in a spiritual wasteland, he went to the cross to defeat Satan and death
and to draw you back to his Father and into his love. The cross leads us to
confession and repentance and an abundant life lived in gratitude to Jesus as
new creations in Jesus.
Then God does the
unimaginable, he creates a new creature in his own image to develop,
tame, lead and love this creation into releasing its potential, this amazingly
full, abundant, living creation to become all that God has created it to
become. God blesses this humanity as he blessed the living beings before; to
create new life and bless the life already created. God provides all creation
with everything it needs and he looks and is pleased with what he sees,
declaring, “It is very good.” God’s very good is
magnificent, glorious, a masterpiece without compare.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cor1haQXkYg
by John Steele
You are a part of
this magnificent, glorious masterpiece. You are the image
of God, washed clean, given new life by Jesus, recognizing that image of God in
everyone you meet. This is why question and answer 1 of the Heidelberg
Catechism rings so powerfully to me: What is
your only comfort in life
and death? That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life
and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my
sins with his precious blood and has set me free from all the power of the
devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly
Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together
for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal
life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him.
This is why we
focus so much on sharing our faith, on inviting
others to join us in our journey of life following Jesus because Jesus desires
that all people might have life and have it to the full
rather than wandering through spiritual wildernesses. We are called to
help people to discover this God who has created them in his image, this Jesus
who offered up his own life so that they can experience new life in him. Jesus
has made it possible for all people to experience new beginnings as he brings
order out of chaos so they can experience with us the very good of
creation. If you are hungering for beauty and wonder, come to Jesus, get to know God the creator and he will give you eyes to see the wonders all around you, filling your heart and soul with the beauty that lies all around you.
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