Back to the Basics - This We Believe!
I Believe in God, Maker of Heaven and Earth
August 24, 2008
Genesis 1:1a, 31-2:3
In the beginning when God created . . . God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2 And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. Genesis 1:1a, 31-2:3
There is an old Woody Guthrie song that I believe every parent and grandparent can relate to. It is called "Why oh Why?" and the lyrics tell the story of a small child asking an adult a long stream of why questions. Why can't a dish break a hammer? Why can't a mouse eat a streetcar? Why does a cow drink water? And it has this wonderful refrain, where the child asks, "Why won't you answer my questions? Why oh why oh why?" and the adult replies, "Because I don't know the answers. Goodbye. Goodbye."
Jesus once took a child and placed him the middle of the disciples and said, "Unless you change and become like little children, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom."
Perhaps one of the things that enable little children to draw closer to inheriting the kingdom is their absolute refusal to quit asking the question, "Why?" It is, after all, a humbling question because we don't know the answers. And, unfortunately for many adults, we reduce everything to what we can explain, what we know, what can be easily defined, and, in the process, we lose not only our humility but also our sense of wonder.
Mathematician and Physicist, Stephen Hawking once observed that the many scientific theories regarding the origin of the universe were just formulas and rules. By themselves they lack fire because while they might explain how the universe came to be, they could never explain why the universe bothers to exist in the first place!
Why does the universe bother to exist? Why do humans exist-especially in light of our messy, broken nature? These are the questions that science, even at its best and most effective, are unable to answer. These are the questions that underlie the first words of the Bible and the first line of our creed: "In the beginning, God created. . ." "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth."
Listen to the reflections of the psalmist:
O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! Psalm 8
This is the question, we are so bold to answer! Why does the universe bother to exist? It is exists because God chose to create it. Why do humans exist? Because God created us for a purpose. Why all this bother? Because God bothered to create!
When we declare that we believe in God, maker of heaven and earth, we are declaring something particular about the God we believe in, the universe we live in, as well as what it means to be a human-a mere mortal-in relationship with this God.
To declare that God is maker of heavens and earth is to say that God is the creator of the universe. God's fingerprints are everywhere! You'll find them on the petals of a flower, the ridges of each unique fingerprint, the glory of a starry night, the crashing of the waves, the beauty of fish dwelling in the depths of the sea. Because God created all that is, there is no place where we can't see evidence of God the Father Almighty because God created it all!
Now that is not to say that God is in all things or that all things are God. To declare that God is maker of heavens and the earth is to say that God is the creator and not the creature. And personally, I find great comfort in knowing that God is not a tree that can be cut down, a sun that sets, or a flower that blooms and then fades. Nor is good water that we can pollute or a field of grain we can pave over. To declare that God is the creator is not pantheism-the belief that God in all things. But rather we are declaring that because God created, God's fingerprints-his name imprinted-on everything around us!
You know the story-even those of you who willingly confess that you are new to the study of the Bible probably know this story-if for no other reason than it is the first thing you find when you open the Bible.
In the beginning . . . God. And God looks out over the nothingness-He breathes his spirit. He says a Word and creation begins. He speaks and the waters separate. He speaks stars and planets into being. He speaks flowers, grains, and fruits into being. He speaks fish, birds and animals into being and he looks at it all and he says, "Oh, it is good!"
To say we believe that God is maker of heaven and earth is to say that we believe that all of creation is a good. The world we live in, the life we live, is not somehow separate or alien from God rather it is God's good gift to us. God cares not only about humans but he also cares about the world around us. God cares about the environment-after all God created it. He cares about animals and insects-after all he created them. In fact, one of my favorite lines in the Bible comes at the end of the book of Jonah when God tells Jonah that he cares not only for Jonah's enemies, the Ninevites, but he also cares for all their animals!
I find it very strange that there are people who declare they believe that God created the world and all that is in it but are not concerned with how they treat it. Some of the same people who would argue and argue about how they believe God created the world in six 24 hour days seem to have no awe or humility when it comes to looking at what God created nor do they treat nature with the respect due a creation of God.
To say we believe in God the creator is to recognize that the world around us is good. It is of value to us and to God and we should therefore treat it with respect.
This leads us back to that creation story! God creates heavens, earth, plants and animals and then he creates man and God gives that man a job caring for all that has been created. Then for the first time, something is not quite right. God looks at that man standing by himself and declares, "It is not good for man to be alone." So he creates another human-a woman to work with the man-and God gives them a job. Then he declares that everything is now "Very good."
To declare that God is maker of heaven and earth is to recognize that we humans have a responsibility to the world he created. Genesis tells us that God commands humans to be fruitful and multiply (which someone once pointed out may be the only command of God we humans have done a good job of obeying!) and to subdue the earth and have dominion over the animals.
But what does that command to subdue the earth and have dominion over the rest of creation mean?
For years, Christians have assumed that God's command means we can use creation as we will. We've treated God's creation much like a distant tyrant king who sends workers and soldiers to a far off country to exploit its natural resources for his own benefit with no thought to those people it impacts now-let alone the generations to come. In fact, there are those who, and I believe rightly, state that the problems we are experiencing with the environment now can be credited to Christians who acted as if God had handed them this world to use as they wanted because he had given us dominion.
But to say we believe in God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth is to say that God is the ruler of this world and we, as his image-his ambassadors, are called to be his agents-his stewards-over his world. In other words, we are given power and responsibility to care for creation on God's behalf. This world-the universe-and all that is within it belongs to God-not to us. And we are called to make decisions on how we responsibly use what God has so graciously provided for us!
Furthermore, to declare belief in God as maker of heaven and earth is also to say something about the character of God and about what it means for us to be created in God's image.
Have you ever wondered why God chose to create?
After all, God didn't have to. If God is almighty-all powerful, all knowing, all in all-why would God have to create something other than God?
The psalmist says the world and all that is in it declares the name-the glory of God. To say we believe in God maker of heaven and earth is to say that we believe in a God whose very character-whose very being-is creative! God creates because that is God's nature and therefore creation declares who God is to everyone who sees it. We believe in a God who creates.
Actually, there are some who believe that perhaps one of the ways that humans are created in God's image is that we too can choose to create. Granted spiders create beautiful webs. Birds build intricate nests. Coral builds elaborate, amazing reefs. But animals and insects build by instinct. They don't choose to create. They just do it.
Humans, on the other hand, can choose to create. We can look at an empty lot and say, "I I believe I'll create a field of cotton." We can look at blank page and choose to create a novel. We can look with love in the eyes of another and say, "I believe we'll create a home and a family." What animals and insects do instinctively, we are allowed to choose to do. Like God, we can choose to create something other than ourselves. So that every building is built, every canvas that is painted, every song that is sung, every poem-or even every report-that is written all can declare the glory of the creator God!
Which means that when we stand and declare our belief in God, maker of heaven and earth, we have to ask ourselves a serious question-in what ways do the things we create reflect the glory of God? How does the work we do on a daily basis reflect the glory of God? How do the songs we sing reflect the glory of God? How do the homes we build, the relationships we create, reflect the glory of God?
At this moment, I feel like John nearing the end of his gospel and declaring in exasperation, there are so many more things that Jesus did but I suppose if I wrote them all down the entire world couldn't contain it. There is so much more to be said about what it means to believe in that God is the maker of heaven and earth, but let me share just one more.
To say that we believe in God is the maker of heaven and earth is not to say that we believe that God created once and then took a very very long Sabbath. The God of the Bible, the God of the creed, is not the Deist clock maker god, who created the earth and left it to its own devises. The God of Scripture is a God who not only created in the beginning but continues to create!
The psalmist puts it this way, "you send forth your spirit and they are created and you renew the face of the earth." God's work of creation didn't end on the sixth day. God continues to work within our world to create and recreate. That's why the creed declares belief in God as maker of heaven and earth right before it delves into belief in Jesus, the son of God, who enters into creation to bring new life. I love how the word of the creed of the Church of Christ of Canada says it, "We believe in God, who has created and is creating, who has come in Jesus the word made flesh to reconcile and to make new."
We believe in a God who sent his son, Jesus, into the midst of his good creation to rescue us from the mess we were making of things. We believe in a God who sends his spirit to renew us and to give us the power to be recreated-to have new life-so that we too can join this God in the work of showing his glory!
We once bought Phillip a t-shirt that read, "What if the Hokey Pokey is really what it is all about?" The problem with so much talk about God as creator of the earth today is that is misses the real point! The most important question about creation of the world is not how it happened, but why. And truthfully, there is way too much pride and not enough awe on both sides of the argument. What makes us think we can figure out how God created the universe!? Perhaps that is why God used the language of poetry, song, and storytelling to explain creation rather than the language of formulas and rules.
We can live without knowing how the universe was created. But we can't live fully and abundantly without knowing why it was created. How much despair is contained in the questions: "Why does the universe bother to exist?" "What is the meaning of this life?" And "What if the Hokey-Pokey is really what it is all about?"
When we stand and declare that God is maker of heaven and earth, we are declaring that God created this universe for a purpose. When we declare that God is maker of heaven and earth, we declare that we have a purpose in this world. When we declare that God is maker of heaven and earth, we declare that the Father almighty-who set the stars in the skies, who designed the smallest atoms and quarks, wants a relationship with us and is continuing to work to transform and renew us.
So let us now stand and join our voices with Christians throughout the world, across denominations and throughout the ages as we affirm our faith in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth, in the words of the Apostle's Creed!
|
