I don’t think I’ve ever come
across anyone who isn’t, in some way, fascinated with the world around them. For
some, the focus of interest may be the stars and planets and the mathematics of
the heavens, how complex physics formulas help us learn about an ever-expanding
universe. For others that fascination might be centered on the complete
opposite end of things: it’s the inner workings of the atom or the biological
cell that really get them thinking.
Some might find those kinds
of things boring or too mind-boggling to ponder but they do find themselves
captivated by the love of a pet…or the view of the Shenandoah Valley from the Skyline
Drive…or the twinkling of lightning bugs over the backyard in early June. And
just look at the platypus! It has the body of an otter, the tail of a beaver,
and the mouth of a duck and it lays eggs! And it stings! As someone once said,
it’s made up of leftover parts. Pretty fascinating.
We could go on and on and on with
our lists of things about the natural world that astound and perplex us before
we could even start with the things about human creativity and ingenuity that we
find fascinating: The Pyramids of Giza. The Sistine Chapel. Shakespeare’s plays.
Ethiopian long-distance runners. Apollo 11. Those are just a few of the
well-publicized, extreme examples, but there are ones we encounter every day,
as well. The kindness of strangers. The healing of old wounds. The sharing of
stories that somehow inspire and encourage us to conquer fears and overcome
obstacles. Stepping back momentarily from the grind of the day-to-day provides
the soul with wonder and the mind with plenty to contemplate.
Ancient peoples were no
different. Life may have been a little simpler, a little slower, and a lot less
digital way back when, but early civilizations bore the same types of wonder about
the world around them, where they came from and what the point of life was. In
fact, they had stories about it all, stories that made space for belief and
faith about the meaning of existence. In the midst of all these competing—and,
to be honest, downright depressing—stories arose two stories from one group of
people who had a radically different understanding of why things were the way
they were. Unlike all the other stories that all the other peoples were
telling, theirs told of one God that created everything with order and meaning.
Creation was no accident or by-product of cosmic warfare between rival deities.
In both versions the ancient Hebrews
had—the one we hear today and the one
that directly follows it—creation was a careful, thought-out process. There was
purpose and sequence. Things built upon each other. The God who was responsible
for it all was intimately involved from word one all the way until things
reached completion. And unlike the versions of creation that other peoples
told, in the Hebrews’ stories God actually gave of himself as the creation
occurred. At each step along the way, this God declared with certitude what you
and I never could deduce on our own, but which is so important: this creation
is good. It is not random or meaningless. It is not without value. Everything
from the atoms to the Andromeda chain is the work of a loving and gracious
Creator.
Humans, which were the
crowning piece of this God’s creative work, were not just declared good. They were
pronounced very good. Male and female
together, humans occupied a place in the order of creation that no other
creature did. The Creator would not step back entirely once Creation was
complete. In fact, creation would never really be complete all at the
beginning, which is something the Hebrew people steadfastly maintained. It was
and is an ongoing process, and God has made us in God’s own image that we may steward
it and maintain it (“be fruitful and multiply!”) into the future.
Our challenge today, faced
with so many more factual calculations about the age of the universe or how
things technically got started is not to view these stories in the beginning of
Scripture as pure scientific fact or hard historical evidence but rather in the
way they were intended: stories that communicate something far more important than
science and history. One can convey
truth through things other than the scientific theory, and God didn’t give
God’s people these stories in order to answer questions like “how” and “what”
in the first place. That is, their primary concern is not to communicate how we
all got here or what creation is made of. Rather, God has given us these
stories to tell us the bigger truths like “why” and “who”—why things are the
way they are and why we can sense so much beauty and wonder in it all. They tell
us who we are as creatures, and that we are good and very good, and why humans
do seem to occupy a special place in the midst of it. Male and female together,
we are “a little lower than God and
crowned…with glory and honor” (Psalm 8).
More than anything, however, we
learn from Scripture who is behind and in the midst of all this. We discover
that all along it has been the work of a very unique God, a God who never
removes himself from creation and who loves it deeply. This God loves it so
deeply, in fact, that this God becomes a part of it at one point as one of
these image-bearing humans in order to put things back together the way God
initially planned it.
For that’s the other main
issue with creation and our understanding of it. As good as we hear that it is
and as fascinating as we find it—all the beautiful creepy crawling things and
the birds of the air—we can also see and sense that it is not quite perfect. Deep
down we know that it is broken and that we, especially, have made a mess of it…that
we’ve made a terrible mess of each other. We have the slave trade and school
shootings and skin cancer. We act in dreadful fashion towards our fellow
creatures, become complacent towards the things that need to be changed, and
when we make a mistake we utter “I’m only human!” forgetting that to be truly human
actually means to be very good, crowned with glory and honor.
It is only through this love in
Jesus of Nazareth that we begin to understand just how good and perfect we were
designed to be. In the person of Jesus, the God who creates descends in order to
save and restore us. Made of the very stuff of God and yet also sharing our
skin, Jesus comes to take up a part in the very creation that has become such a
mess, not withholding the divine power even from hanging on a cross. The love
that is poured out between God the Father Creator and God the Son Jesus is then
bestowed upon the rest of humankind so that we may actually share it with each
other and help complete the work that God began so long ago.
This power, this life-giving love
between Father and Son, is what we come to know as the Spirit, and it turns out
we see the Spirit at the beginning, too, as God’s breath of love swirl and
sweep over the waters to bring everything into existence, however it
scientifically may have happened.
Furthermore, we know that if
God can hang on a cross to redeem you and me, then God will also be present for
the length of time, and long after all of this we see has come and gone, and
not even a brick of the Great Pyramids even remain, this God who is One and
Three will remain, and we, somehow, with him.
Standing back and beholding
all of creation’s grand story is certain to produce awe and endless fascination—the
wonders of things like lightning bugs and the hummingbird migration patterns…the
complexity of Bach Brandenburg Concertos and the Hubble Telescope…the potency
of honeybee pollination efforts and Dizzy Gillespie’s cheeks…the sacrifices of
Normandy and Tiananmen Square…the power of war to maim and stunt as well as the
power of forgiveness to heal and renew…the treasures of parental love and
childlike trust…the beauty of human families created by conception and those born
by adoption...
Standing back and beholding it, the person of faith may feel inept
at understanding or scientifically proving really much of anything about how it
all fits together. To be sure, the person of Christian faith may continue
propose impressive and plausible theories for how it all comes about and what
it all is made of. And that is well and good. But do not forget that the person
of faith can also still praise and give thanks for the “why” and the “who” of
this Holy Trinity, this churning relationship of Love-Within-Itself:
That we have been created in
the image of God.
That we have been redeemed by
the Son of God.
That we each may take part in
God’s purposes in our own unique way thanks to the Spirit of God.
And by that same Spirit we
may, in time, echo the story the ancient Hebrews gave us: Lord Almighty, you
are good. You are very, very good.
Thanks be to God!
 |
| Symbol for the Holy Trinity, Stained glass St. Paul Lutheran Church (Bremen, IN) |
The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.
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