New Beginnings
Genesis 1:1-2:4a

This Sunday marks a new beginning in our life together as a family of faith. It's Rally Day! We have been worshipping together in person for many months now, but this Sunday, we have resumed our Sunday School for all ages after over a year and a half of suspending our educational programs. We are even serving biscuits and coffee again!

The Choir gathered for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic for weekly practice. It is wonderful to have them back. Presbyterian Women circle groups will gather this week, the Explorers Bible Study class will also begin again, and Mary Martha Day, with refreshments, will resume. In October, we will start up our Wednesday gatherings for fellowship, study, and prayer.

Despite the pandemic, we are cautiously forging ahead with our normal programs. It may be a “soft opening,” but it is nonetheless a start. This Sunday also marks the beginning of a new year in the Narrative Lectionary Cycle. I like new beginnings, and I believe God does too.

Our reading from Genesis records the first beginning of all: “In the beginning God ….” God is the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end of all things. It is impossible for us to truly conceive of a being without beginning or ending. We live bounded by time and space, but God has no such limitations. God is eternal. This is the most fundamental belief of the Judeo-Christian faith. Without God, nothing else would exist.

The first impulse of God in the narrative is to create. God creates the heavens and the earth or to use modern language, God makes the universe. The universe is so vast it is unimaginable. Our solar system is in the Milky Way Galaxy. Our galaxy has two hundred billion stars! It is in the form of a rotating spiral that takes two hundred and fifty million years to complete one rotation. There are billions and billions of galaxies in the universe. The average galaxy is six hundred thousand trillion miles wide! The average distance between galaxies is twenty million trillion miles apart. The nearest galaxy to our own is the Andromeda Galaxy. It is two million light years away. One light year is six trillion miles. And finally, the galaxies are not fixed in space. They are moving away from each other at one hundred million miles per hour in the ever-expanding universe. This is what God set in motion when He created the heavens and the earth.

In its primordial state, the earth was a formless void, and darkness covered the face of the deep. The image is of a dark, watery chaos that is completely unsuited to life. But something else was also present. The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the dark, watery chaos. And then God put on his battle fatigues, if you will, and with the Spirit and the Word set about limiting the darkness and the chaos.

God’s first act was to speak light into existence, and in so doing God began to resist the darkness. As the Apostle John says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5). God separated the light from the darkness. Day and night were born.

The pattern for the six days of creation was set on the first day. First, God commanded: “God said, ‘Let there be light….’” Then the command was executed: “And it was so.” Next, God assessed His work: “God saw that it was good.” Finally, the act of creation was punctuated by time: “There was evening and morning….” It is interesting to note that night comes before day. Each new day begins with rest followed by our labor.

On the second day, God attacked the watery chaos. God made the dome of the sky to separate the waters above from the waters below. We saw from our series of sermons on the Book of Revelation that the “sea” represents the chaotic anti-God power of un-creation, of anti-creation. In creating the dome of the sky, God sets limits on chaos, and God has continued to keep chaos at bay through the eons of history. Given all the problems in our world, can you imagine what it would be like if God were not constraining the forces of evil?

With darkness and chaos held in check, God sets about the positive work of creation. God creates dry land and calls it Earth. God calls forth vegetation of every kind. God made the stars, the sun, and the moon. God created sea creatures and birds. God made the dry land bring forth living creatures of every sort.

After each act of creation, God pronounces his action to be good. “Good” is not primarily a moral quality here but an aesthetic one. We might render the word "lovely," "pleasing," or "beautiful." After the sixth day, Genesis records that “God saw everything he had made, and indeed it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). Creation was very lovely, pleasing, and beautiful.

This is an important word for us in the present moment. There is so much death, mourning, crying, and pain; there are so many storms, droughts, heatwaves, fires, floods, and earthquakes that it is easy to forget the beauty of the earth, the glory of the skies, and the love that from our birth over and around us lies. God has made a marvelous world for us to inhabit. Yes, darkness and chaos are still lurking and must be kept in check, but planet earth, teeming as it is with life, is a very, very good place to live.

The story of creation is intended to call forth paise for the Creator from all creation, animate and inanimate. Lord of all to Thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise!

We are not done just yet. There is still the sixth day of creation. After limiting the darkness and chaos, after making the earth habitable for flora and fauna, God turns the divine attention to human beings. “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness’” (Gen. 1:26a). From the vantage point of Christian faith, we are overhearing a conversation between God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord, the Word who was in the beginning with God, and the Holy Spirit. No doubt the deliberations were held before the council of angelic beings.

Genesis 1:27 records what God did. “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” We were and are made in the image of God. This is another fundamental truth of the Judeo-Christian faith that imbues humanity with dignity and intrinsic value.

The Old Testament in particular is adamant that God is not to be depicted in any form. “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Deut. 5:8). But there is one exception. Dr. Walter Brueggemann points this out in his excellent commentary on Genesis. “There is one way in which God is imaged in the world and only one: humanness! This is the only creature, the only part of creation, which discloses to us something about the reality of God. This God is not known through any cast or molten image. God is known peculiarly through this creature who exists in the realm of free history, where power is received, decisions are made, and commitments are honored.” We have a unique place in God’s economy of creation.

The image of God also entails sharing dominion with God over the creation. “Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Gen. 26b). Our power is to be like God’s power. God invites, evokes, and permits. God is not coercive or tyrannical. The dominion God shares with us is particularly focused on the animals. The dominance we exercise is akin to that of a shepherd who cares for, tends, and feeds his flock. We are to exercise our power for the benefit, well-being, and improvement of others, living things, and creation. I liked what one commentator observed, “The man and the woman are not chattel and slaves of God, but agents of God to whom much is given, from whom much is expected.” That is the kind of power God has entrusted to us as His image bearers.

It is important to note that Genesis records that God created us male and female. It is together, in community, that we most fully reflect the image of God. No one is the full image of God by him or herself, except for Jesus. For us mere mortals, the only hope we have of reflecting the glory of God is together in community.

And there is one last point to be made. Our text contains three blessings: Genesis 1:22, 28, and 2:3. God blesses the animals and human beings, and the sabbath. The original sabbath was for rest, not for worship. The act of resting on the sabbath is an affirmation of trust in God’s ability. God is not worried about the chaos and darkness. God has dealt with them for now and so God rests. When we rest, we are trusting in God to rule over all God has made. We teach our children to sing from the youngest age, “He’s got the whole world in his hand; he’s got the whole world in his hand; he’s got the whole world in his hands; he’s got the whole world in his hands.” We are safe in God’s care.

Genesis 1 and 2 tell the story of the first beginning, but it is far from the last. God is ever doing a new thing, and we can join God in his work by faithfully reflecting the image of God in community and resting in the unsurpassable ability of our Creator to do all things well. All glory be to God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Alleluia! Amen!