Monday, February 8, 2021                (today’s lectionary)
Let there be, and let there be, and let there be
For nine days, between now and Ash Wednesday, we will be lavished with the first six chapters of Genesis: the story of the creation of our world and then hard upon that story the story of our own creation, and our fall, and then our near extinction in the Flood. Our hunger is deep to understand what we cannot understand and were not there to experience. Of course it is! We ate from the tree we were supposed to leave alone. Knowledge of good and evil was something we weren’t ready for. And we still aren’t.
Bless the Lord, O my soul! You fixed the earth on its foundation and then covered it with the ocean, so above the mountains the waters stood. The earth is full of your creatures.
But the psalmist didn’t read Genesis straight. It was out of the waters that the earth (that “formless wasteland”)” appeared. Not the other way around.
A mighty wind swept over the waters, and God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. God saw how good the light was, and he separated the light from the darkness, the “day” from “night,” and so evening came and morning followed. The first day.
In Hebrew, “mighty wind” is ruah, later a name for the Holy Spirit: “The Spirit hovered over the face of the deep.” Our cinematography, computer graphics and sound effects bring all of this to a kind of life for me, and in that brief shining moment I think I AM there, I think I DO understand and I can say, along with God, that “It is good.”
In the days to come God found much to do. Did he have a plan or did he make stuff up by the seat of his pants? Was he more creative at night or in the morning? What did the we-God say to each other as they made all things new?
The water under the sky was gathered, and the dry land appeared. And God saw how good it was. And God spoke again, and the earth brought forth every kind of plant and every kind of fruit tree, then evening came and morning followed – the third day.
Jesus carried this creative power with him into the crowds of Galilee. It was far more than Moses parting the Red Sea … Jesus was creating the dry land, and everything he touched came into new life and grew up strong.
Whatever village he entered they laid the sick in the marketplace. They begged to touch even the tassel on his cloak, and AS MANY AS TOUCHED IT WERE HEALED.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem a Great Star guided the wise to his birthplace. In the beginning, Jesus helped to place that star in the heavens and sent it on its way. With God a thousand years are like a day.
God made the sun and the moon, and he made the stars to shed light upon the earth, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw how good it was and evening came, morning followed – the fourth day.
Tomorrow as the sun rises and the moon sets, God’s mercies are new in the morning, and great is his faithfulness. Ever since those first seven days, evening has always come, and morning always followed – another day that the Lord has made.
(Genesis 1, Psalm 104, Matthew 4, Mark 6)
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