In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning - the first day.
(Genesis 1:1-5)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
“We’re Number 1!” If you’re a sports fan - a fan of any team going - you’ve either shouted that at some point or you’ve dreamed about. Of course, if you’re a Toronto Maple Leaf fan the dream had a tendency to become a recurring nightmare, as Randy Carlyle discovered just a few days ago! But I digress. Let’s think about the dream and not the nightmare. “We’re Number 1!” There’s something pretty special about being “Number 1.” It means you’re the best, or the most important. Everything else has to be understood and evaluated against whatever it is that we decide is “Number 1.” So, I started wondering, what was “Number 1” with God? I think as humans we tend to take a very human-centred view of creation. It’s almost as if we think that everything that exists was created for us. The Bible tells us that we’re the ones who have been given “dominion” over creation after all, from a spiritual point of view we see ourselves as the pinnacle of God’s creative activity, and generally speaking we’re at the top of the food chain. We’ll eat pretty much anything - but most other critters (even the big, scary ones) will try to avoid us if they can. So, sure, maybe in that sense we’re “Number 1.” But what does the story of creation tell us? What was “Number 1” in the story of creation? What was the thing that was created from which everything else that was created (including us) flowed? That, of course - as the creation story tells us - was “light.” Light was “Number 1.” And what does that tell us about the rest of creation?
We know light’s important. It’s especially important in the Bible. The Bible calls Jesus “the light of the world,” and Jesus tells us that we’re “the light of the world.” It’s pretty important to understand what’s being talked about. And, as I was saying with the children, it’s also important to understand the concept of darkness, because opposites help us to understand each other. One of the traditional readings from the prophets that’s often read during Christmas is from Isaiah: “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light.” There’s a contrast here; a dramatic difference between walking in darkness and living in light. And just from the natural world we know that light always overcomes darkness. As long as the sun in shining it’s not dark. It only gets dark when the source of light is hidden from us, but once the light reappears the darkness disappears. Day and night are spoken of in today’s passage - but just to make the point that there’s a huge and noticeable difference between darkness and light that affects every aspect of our lives.The light that’s created by God at the very beginning of the Bible story isn’t “day” as we understand it. It’s the light the reveals truth; the light that offers wisdom. The “light” spoken of in Genesis 1 is knowledge of God. What the opening verses of the Bible are telling us is that from the very beginning of time God has structured creation in such a way that God will be revealed; that God can be seen; that God can be approached; that God can be known. That’s what the story is telling us. That’s the “light” that transforms our lives when we choose to walk in it.
What’s happening, after all, in these first verses in the story of creation? Order is coming into existence, replacing the chaos that existed before. People get so caught up in the details of the story that they forget the meaning of the story. I’ve heard people reject the creation story simply because it says that light was created before the sun. Well, it did, of course. There are plenty of stars that would have given light long before the sun was in existence - and those stars probably had planets so there was day and night existing somewhere in the universe too. But trying to worry about things like that misses the point. God is being made known in the very fabric of the universe; in the very order that we see in all that exists around us; in the various details that all work together to make the universe understandable and to make our own lives understandable. This is what God does: God brings order from chaos, light from darkness, hope from despair, joy from sorrow.
All the things that threaten to tear our lives apart are overcome and our lives can be knit back together again by God whose work of creating - whose work of bringing order to chaos - never stops. I don’t know about any of you - but I do know that from time to time my life seems a bit chaotic, and it’s good to know that God is there to set things right. Whatever darkness I find myself in; whatever darkness you find yourself there - God is there, saying “let there be light.”
And that applies to the world, of course, as well. Sometimes the world seems to be on the verge of dissolving into chaos, and of allowing darkness to triumph. Look no farther than what happened in Paris just a few days ago. Or at any of a multitude of things that happen on any given week. They can cause us to fall into fear, they can convince us that - to use an old saying - the world’s going to hell in a handbasket, and they can make us think that there’s no hope. And yet, in the midst of it all (in the midst of whatever darkness exists in the world, God is there, saying “let there be light.”
That can even apply to the church. The church can fall into the darkness of hopelessness and despair. We’re running out of money, we’re getting older, it was so much better when … We start to think there’s no hope; we start to think that our mission is to simply survive for as long as we can. We can easily stop doing what Christians are supposed to do - which is pour love out within and beyond our own little community - and instead just focus on our problems. But in the midst of all that, if we’ll listen, God is there, saying “let there be light.”
I can't help but think of "light" without thinking of what happened in Paris last week. There's no doubt that the terrorist attacks were acts of darkness but it seems to me that the problem is that darkness will beget more darkness if we're not careful. Revenge, hatred, fear, a willingness to give up freedom in the belief that it will make us safer. I can't help but think of Benjamin Franklin's famous teaching that anyone who gives up essential freedom to gain temporary security deserves neither freedom nor security. But revenge, hatred, fear and allowing ourselves to be cowed into giving up freedom are all forms of darkness which have nothing to do with God. But, as I said, darkness begets darkness, and in John's Gospel we're told that the real tragedy is that far too often human beings choose darkness over light. We choose to live by the ways and standards and according to the expectations of the world, rather than choosing the way of God - a way that's been revealed to us by Jesus. That's the way of love. That's the way of grace. That's the way of mercy, compassion and forgiveness. That's the way of justice. That's the way that offers dignity and respect to all. That's the way revealed to us by light - a light that darkness can never fully extinguish; a knowledge of God that will never fade away. It's the first thing created by God. It's Number 1. Nothing is more powerful.
No comments:
Post a Comment