Genesis 1:1-5: The Author of Beautiful

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

What was God thinking back there in the beginning? There wasn't light. There wasn't darkness.  The Spirit was just hovering there over a vast roiling mass of nothing--no, not even nothing because that would allow me to measure its height, color, temperature and more, but it had none of that. It was the ultimate blank canvas--not just to paint and sculpt but fundamentally to speak. What brought order to the formless and substance to the empty and meaning to the meaningless were the words, "Let there be..." because they brought is to the is not. 

I have an unexpected emotional response to that phrase here in these few verses. How powerful are God's words! From the one who is and was and always will be--from the great "I am"  comes the verb "to be"--"let there be" That is uniquely God and uniquely beautiful. He spoke light and he took a moment to look at it and he had delight in it and he called it good. Why? Because God is good.  Sometimes just thinking about that moment when there was not and then there was and what was was good--makes me admire God because he is the author of beautiful.

Genesis 1: Every True Idea Has It's Origin In The Mind of God

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.

And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. - Genesis 1

God made the world with people in mind. The moon and sun were for the days and tides, the sun was for the seasons, the seasons and sun were for the plants to grow, the plants were for the animals (and people) to eat, the animals were for the people to rule over. God made a system that was designed to run and flourish under the stewardship of people. And it was very good. People had detailed understanding of the planet and its systems and God gave them the privilege of giving each animal its first name.

The relationship between humans and the rest of creation changed the moment that people sinned, but that is not yet in the story. Instead we are given a glimpse of the awesome creativity of God who made something-something beautiful-from nothing at every level-physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, hydraulics, engineering and so much more. Every idea that scientists search for had its origin in the mind of God. He considered all alternatives and chose to create the one we live in. Amen

Psalm 29: Untamed Holiness

"But holiness is in wild and furious opposition to all such banality and blandness, the specialty of sectarian groups who reduce life to behaviors and cliches that can be certified as safe: goodness in a straitjacket, truth drained of mystery, beauty emasculated into ceramic knickknacks...This God-life cannot be domesticated or used; it can only be entered into on its own terms." - Eugene Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire

After many years of church growing up, it certainly seemed that holiness was some sort of synonym for boring. It was static. It was the throne room of God where he sat in perfection and we all sort of stood around watching him be perfect.

But the writer of Psalm 29 seems to have a different idea:

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. - Psalm 29:2

Sounds pretty Sunday-school-esque. Safe. But then:

The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is majestic. - Psalm 29:3

Holiness is being set apart, whether by nature (as God) or by designation (by God). While it is true that we are made in his image, there is so much more to God that we do not and cannot possess. This gap creates a tension that we are tempted to resolve by imagining God as a bigger, cleaned-up version of ourselves. There is an other-ness-a transcendence-to God that we are not equipped to fathom and this means that every encounter with the holy stretches us and even confuses us. It cannot be tame or bland because it is wholly not our own.

Listen to his voice! Here in Psalm 29, as in Genesis 1, he speaks his creative word over the swirling chaos of the waters and the world leaps. The world responds, not with the gentle dance of the sugar-plum fairies but with visceral leap of the created towards its creator.

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon leap like a calf, Sirion like a young wild ox.
The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning.
The voice of the Lord shakes the desert; the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forests bare. - Psalm 29:4-9a

Only the cardboard-cutout of God is ho-hum. Sometimes I have enshrined my impressions of God from earlier in my faith walk. Sometimes I have chosen convenient caricatures of God that make him more manageable. Sometimes I have reduced the eternal person-hood of God into a few impersonal principles that can be obeyed and therefore controlled, but not loved.

God, destroy any image in me which is short of yourself. It is a continual breaking of me, finding that my imagination lacks the capacity. At the same time, I am happy because you are so different and so immense and so undiscovered. Let me join in response to the beauty of your holiness where "...in his temple all cry, 'Glory!' (Psalm 29:9b)