For the next several weeks our sermons will go back to the beginning...to the book of beginnings, the Old Testament book of Genesis. Most of our preaching these days centers on the New Testament. Most of us remember a few Old Testament stories from our childhood–if you’re like me, the gory tales stick with you the longest. We remember Noah and the great flood; we remember David slaying Goliath; we can recite most of the 23rd Psalm, but for the most part, the Old Testament has been relegated to the “inactive” file. The OT is even something of an embarrassment for many Christians who are put off by all the wars and punishments and curses and laws. I know many Christians who don’t want to be associated with that “God of the Old Testament.”
But it is important to start at the beginning. Why? Because as Elizabeth Achtemeier said: “...without the OT we do not know fully who Jesus Christ is.” [ Paul and Elizabeth Achtemeier, The OT Roots of our Faith, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962), 12-16.]The very first words spoken about Jesus in the NT book of Matthew are these: “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Well what is a Messiah, who was David and what does Abraham have to do with anything? You’ve got to dive into the OT to find out.
Our walk of faith did not begin with us; it didn’t even start with Jesus of Nazareth. It started on the plains of Babylon, it started in the garden called Eden...it started in the mind of God, whose Spirit moved across the face of the churning chaos. Over the last few years, we have discovered that our lives are intertwined with the lives and histories of the world’s Muslims and Jews. Christians, Muslims, and Jews all trace their roots to Abraham. The apostle Paul told the early believers that Abraham was the father of us all. He said that the Church is like a living branch which has been grafted onto the root of the Israel. Dr. Achtemeier wrote: “What Israel was, or was supposed to be, the Christian Church is. And what God did for Israel is the family background and inheritance of every Christian.” In fact, “the Christian Church is...the new Israel in Christ...the people of the new covenant.”
Over the next several weeks we will go back to try to connect the dots with our distant past. We will blow the dust off the first book of the Torah, that we might reclaim the background of our forebears, and maybe we’ll get a little better look at where we’re headed on this journey with Jesus, the Messiah. Where do we start? Let’s start at the beginning.
“Before the beginning of the beginning of anything that ever was, there was God and there was nothing. The emptiness was emptier than anyone could imagine, and the loneliness was lonelier than anyone could (ever conceive)." [Michael Williams, ed. The Storyteller’s Companion to the Bible-Genesis, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), 28. ] Dark, shapeless, turbulent...empty and silent it was until God’s voice rang out, “Let there be light!” and light filled everything there was to fill. “Not bad!” thought God, and he counted off the first day.
On the second day, the Lord got to work early. With a word he hung the sky and put the waters right where he wanted them.
On Day three, the Lord called dry land into being. The wild waves rolled unhindered until the moment he said, “That’s it! Hold it right there! That’s the limit...right there and no further.” But what to put on earth? God’s imagination ran free, and the ground burst forth with life. Orchids and oranges and oaks, roses and rhododendrons and redwoods, tulips and turnips and towering trees. “What a day!” thought the Lord, and so passed Day 3.
On Day 4, God called for more light, and the heavens exploded into showers of colored fire. A single sun for earth, and one little moon...but across the unthinkable emptiness of the cosmos he hung enough wonders and bejeweled mysteries to wow us all until the end of time. Pulsars, quasars, black holes, star nurseries, and cartwheeling galaxies. God was so tickled by his handiwork that he said, “Oooh, that’s nice!”
Day 5 and 6 passed at a furious pace. “Life!” God shouted. “Let creatures fill the world!” Living beings poured forth from the Giver of life. Flocks of sparrows, gaggles of geese, schools of salmon, pods of whale. Herds of cattle, camels and goats and sheep; dens of bear, prides of lion and masses of all things that creep. On they came, in verdant glory. The sea teemed with creatures that swam and paddled and gurgled and dived. The sky was filled with creatures that flapped and soared and squawked and sang. Down belong things walked and crawled and crept and hopped...they wiggled and shimmied and slithered and flopped. The Maker of all laughed and laughed...and proclaimed it good.
On the sixth day God paused. All that had been created so far had been spoken into being. “Let there be,” he said, and there was. “Let the earth bring forth!”...and it did. But on this day, the Creator summoned the cherubim and seraphim and all the holy angels who stood before the throne. “Watch this,” he said, and then he rolled up his royal sleeves and got his hands dirty. “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness,” he said, “and let them have dominion...let them exert care...let them shepherd the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and the cattle in the field, and the wild animals of the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps under the earth.” God reached down and formed humans out of the dust of the ground. “He made them in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Then God did something he had not done with any other part of creation. He talked to the man and the woman. He spoke with them; he blessed them and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth...” And God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very, very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and it was one big heap of creating! And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.
The Genesis Creation account. Is it science? Is it a blueprint? Is it an answer against the secular humanists? No, not really. It is proclamation...it is lyric praise...it is song. The Genesis Creation account. Is it antiquated wives’ tale? Is it myth? Is it hopeful fable? It is deep, powerful truth. Many of you remember the first time that humans traveled to orbit the moon. It was Christmas Eve, 1968, and the three Apollo 8 astronauts looked back at that beautiful blue marble hanging in the black void of space, and with the whole world tuned in, they began to read on that crackly radio the story we have just heard: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." “Planet earth never looked so beautiful, so mysterious, and so very fragile.”[Dan Clendenin, blog: “The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself” http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20080512JJ.shtml (Accessed May 17, 2008)]
What do we learn from this ancient narrative? What does the OT have to say about the source of our life? The Genesis Creation account subverts our own culture’s creation myths. You know those myths, don’t you?...the ones that suggest that science has the only explanation worth knowing regarding how we came to be. A few years back, astrophysicist Carl Sagan used to say that “the universe is all there ever has been, is, or ever will be. That's a fascinating myth that deserves genuine debate, but it's neither scientifically verifiable or religiously satisfying. Zoologist Richard Dawkins of Oxford University is making a lot of noise these days, objecting to the idea that the human species deserves any special moral consideration compared with other species. Misguided religious zealots might believe that ancient superstition, says Dawkins, but it "has no proper basis in evolutionary biology." [ibid.]
The poet of Genesis says there are really much more complex circumstances going on all around us. The real story is that we're not alone, we're not merely at the top of the evolutionary food chain. The real story, says the author of Genesis, is that from the beginning we have been watched by the Spirit of God who hovers over all existence like a tender mother.” (Genesis 1:2). Even more amazing is the assurance that we have been created in the image of God, and have been made “after his likeness” (1:26). What does it mean to be created in his image? The story is told that the German philosopher Immanuel Kant used to take long walks on summer evenings to think about life. On one occasion a policeman passed him motionless for several hours on a park bench. The policeman asked, “What are you doing?” Kant replied: “I’m thinking.” The policeman said, “Who are you?” Kant said, “That’s precisely the problem I’ve been thinking about. Who am I?”
The image of God isn't something that you earn by being smarter, tougher, or more resilient than other species. Affirming that we bear God’s image doesn't place us at the center of God’s universe. God alone is at the center of the creation story. (Clendenin.) Humanity, says the Psalmist, is made "a little lower than the angels" (Psalm 8:5), and our role is stewardship and care for "all the earth" (Genesis 1:26). Bearing God’s image does mean one thing...that we are deeply loved by God. He made us in his own image...he did it on purpose...and it brought him great joy. Wisdom sings in Proverbs 8: I was there when he created the world, I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men.” The Psalms bubble over with joy at the love God has for his creation. He blesses it, enriches it, crowns it with glory. Morning and evening shout for joy, they shout, yes they sing. God is so blessed by his creation that over and over he calls it “good.” We sense that, don’t we, we who live in this beautiful corner of God’s earth? We sense that the hands who made this world care about us, don’t we? I lift up mine eyes to the hills. From whence cometh my help? My help cometh from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth (Psalm 121). O Lord, Our Lord, How majestic is Thy name in all the earth...When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?”
Sometimes that’s hard for us to see that God cares for us...hard for us to understand that he watches and loves us. It’s hard to understand when a cyclone washes away 100,00 souls in Myanmar...when the earth wrenches in Southwestern China and tens of thousands are killed. It’s hard to understand when people made in God’s image seem so incredibly intent on killing one another, on ripping open the earth to mine it for resources, on choking this beautiful blue ball with smoke and filth until we gag on our own garbage.
But the Creation account tells us that God is in it for the long haul...that God and his creation are bound together with tethers that cannot be broken. We can neither explain it nor analyze it...the best we can do is to affirm it and confess it. “God wills and will have a faithful relation with earth…The binding is irreversible. God has decided...” [Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, Interpretation Series, 23-24]
And what is the appropriate response to this joy of the Creator...this binding of the Creator of himself to creation? Doxology, I think...praise, thanks, gratitude. One of the wondrous aspects of being a follower of Christ is that when we are overwhelmed by the beauty of creation and the faithfulness of the Creator, we know who to thank. An second response is stewardship. May we care for the earth because we have been placed here to shepherd, steward, care for God’s creation.
Yet Christians don’t simply respond to the earth...to creation. We respond to the Creator Himself. God has given us unique abilities to respond to his involvement in our world.
The only other thing I would point you to today is to notice how we have been set apart from the rest of creation. We’re a part of the created order, yes, but we are different from all other creatures on earth, for God made only humans to be spiritual beings. God is spirit, and he made us spirit too. To us he gives spiritual gifts...the power to create, to change, to think. To us he gives spiritual gifts...the ability to listen, to speak, to answer when he calls. To us he gives spiritual gifts...the ability to make moral choices, to distinguish between good and evil. We reflect how God acts and thinks and loves.
Our spirit belongs to the Spirit who breathed life into us. Our spirits hunger for him, and we only find our true selves, our real home when we find ourselves in him. Are you offering the Father what belongs to him? Are you giving back to him the spirit that he created and loves and desires? Come back to your Creator, and let him joyfully shine in you.
Hear the hopeful words of John Donne: “He brought light out of darkness, not out of lesser light; he can bring thy summer out of winter, though thou have no spring; though in the ways of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the Spring, but as the sun at noon” (John Donne, From a Christmas Sermon at Saint Paul’s).
