“The Universe Is No Accident”
Genesis 1:1-5
“First
this: God created the heavens and Earth – all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless
emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s
Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.”
A
soup of nothingness. A bottomless
emptiness. An inky blackness. A watery abyss. Those are the translated and paraphrased
words of Scripture as used by Eugene Peterson to describe the absolute, chaotic
nothingness out of which God created the universe.
There are other words used by other
people to describe that nothingness.
Disorder. Total lack of
order. Tempest. A formless waste. Impenetrable darkness. Those are all words used by Biblical scholars
to describe the indescribable. We know
chaos - but not absolute chaos. We know
emptiness - but not total emptiness. We
know a little bit about the meaning of nothingness - but none of us has ever
experienced a nothingness in which there is absolutely not something.
No human being can describe the
chaotic nothingness from which God created all that is. Nor can we really picture God reigning in
what one commentator described as solitary and exclusive majesty. There was God and no one else. No creatures, and definitely no other
pre-existing gods.
Then God, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit – that mysterious union of three in one that we call the Trinity - spoke
creation into being. God bent the
pre-existing chaos to his will, held it at bay, and vanquished it. He became and remains Lord over it. He who created still renews and redeems
creation and its creatures, especially that apex of creation known as humanity.
As Paul wrote in II Corinthians, in
Christ we become new creations.
The Hebrew verb we translate as “to
create” is only used when God is the noun.
Only God can create what is. Only
God can make something out of total nothingness. Only God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, can
ultimately redeem, renew, or re-create that which sin and evil have infected,
perverted, and destroyed. Only God can
bring creation full circle, bringing the perfection described in Genesis back
to the perfection described in Revelation.
Only God can defeat the demonic. Chaos has been described as not only a threat
to creation but also as that force that is opposed to God. The demonic has been defined as anything that
opposes the will of God. The Devil loves
chaos – darkness and emptiness. Chaos is
his playground. Chaos is one of his
tools of destruction. Anything opposed
to God’s will is an ally, if not perverted creation, of the Devil. Only God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, can
vanquish the Devil and his legions.
Why
does God create, re-create, renew, and redeem?
Why does he work to vanquish all that is chaotic and demonic? Why did he in the person of his Son Jesus die
on a cross? Why was that same Jesus
raised by God from the dead? Why did God
in the person of the Holy Spirit breath life into creation? Why did that same Spirit come as wind and
fire on Pentecost Sunday, giving birth to the Church? Why will God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
bring about that new heaven and new earth described in Revelation 21?
Because he chooses to. Creation, redemption, salvation, and healing
are all initiated by God. Not by
creation. There is no creation unless
God wills it. Not by the human
race. We are a part of creation, and a
terribly flawed part at that. Not by
other gods. There are no other gods. Not by the Devil. The demonic is as opposed to creation as it
is to God. Only God can create, and
nothing is created outside of God’s initiative.
God’s initiative. God’s choice.
God’s will. God’s Word. The universe is not the result of some coincidental,
unplanned collusion, or collision of random events. Creation is not a result of its own
initiative. This world, with all its
wonders, is not an act of happenstance.
Nor are the moon, stars, planets, and galaxies. As Peterson’s translation so aptly puts it
all we see and all we don’t see are products of God’s will.
Having said that, please don’t ask me
for details. I don’t know the
details. Genesis more readily answers
the “why” of creation that it does the “how.”
Quite frankly, I don’t care.
I wasn’t in the tomb with Jesus on
Easter morning. I don’t know the
mechanics of the Resurrection. I just
know and believe with all my heart that it happened, and that God made it happen. In much the same way I don’t know all the
mechanics of creation. I just know and
believe with all my heart that it happened, and that God made it happen.
Trying to rationally and
intellectually describe the creation is a lot like trying to rationally and
intellectually describe the burning bush, the parting of the
Who among us can analyze or explain
God’s love? None of us. We can only receive it, experience it, and
return it. When we witness to the saving
grace of Jesus Christ we don’t define it, we simply share it. It’s something we have accepted on faith and
know deep in our hearts that other folks need to hear about it.
The writer of Hebrews got it right and
so did the Apostle Paul: “Faith is the
assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen… now we see in
a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part; then I will know fully…”
Until then, whenever then is, I simply
believe. I don’t explain. I don’t analyze. I don’t ponder the secrets of eternity. I don’t stay awake at night trying to read
the mind of God. The Bible says, “In the beginning God created…” That’s all I need to know. It happened.
God did it, and he did it because he wanted to. He doesn’t have to explain either his motives
or his methods to me.
And the bottom line is that I don’t
have to explain or defend those motives and methods to others. Not to the government. Not to the school system. Not to the geology and biology departments of
the
Nor am I an accident. I am a creation of God. Neither my salvation nor yours are an
accident. We are not randomly selected
believers. We’re not accidental
Christians.
I didn’t wake up one morning and
decide that I wanted to be a minister.
Mostly the opposite is true. I
fought God’s call tooth and nail. Did
God care? No. He created and called me for a specific
purpose. I’m a minister because that’s
what God wants me to be. That’s what God
created me to be. My only even
semi-rational explanation for that is that God has a great sense of humor!
Backing up: first there was nothing,
then there was something. There was
chaos and then there was creation. There
was darkness and then there was light.
There was non-existence and then there was life. Why?
Because God said so. God meant
for it to be. Thus it was.
The universe was made on purpose,
God’s purpose. All that is is on
purpose, God’s purpose. The planet Earth
is here on purpose, God’s purpose. All
that moves, breathes, and lives does so on purpose, God’s purpose. Jesus came on purpose, God’s purpose. He will come again on purpose, God’s
purpose. The Church came into being on
purpose, God’s purpose. You, I, and
everyone else ever born was born on purpose, God’s purpose. At God’s initiative. In accordance with God’s will. None of these were or are random
incidents. Creation is no cosmic coincidence,
no cruel joke played on us by some highly advanced alien race out there somewhere. Adam and Eve did not arrive here in flying
saucers.
Creation is of God and God alone. It is a loving, purposeful, intentional act
of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
That’s all I need to know. Amen.