Sermons

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And So It Begins
September 8, 2002
Pastor Dan Baumgartner
First in a sermon series,
"Back to the Beginning," on Genesis 1-11

Genesis 1:1-25

As we come to our scripture this morning, we need your help. If you’ll turn to the insert in your bulletin on tan paper, we’ll read responsively from Genesis 1:1-25, as well as a few lines from the gospel of John.

“In the Beginning.” This passage from Genesis may be the most well-read in the entire Bible. That could be for a couple of reasons. First, it’s the FIRST book in the Bible, and every time one of us makes a resolution to read through the entire Bible, our first tendency is to start at the Beginning…and so we read Genesis. Sometimes we even make it through, and maybe even through the next book, Exodus…before bogging down and giving up in Leviticus!

Or, second, every time you see one of those Christian fish symbols on a car being swallowed up by Darwin, and you think about the whole subject of evolution, and you say “What does Genesis say about creation, exactly?” And so you start back in.

That’s not all bad. Genesis really lays the groundwork for the entire Bible. All that will follow…the history, the poetry, the prayers, sin, redemption, Moses, the patriarchs, Christ, the apostles, the church…this book, the Bible, that ends with “Come, Lord Jesus” in Revelation…begins with “In the Beginning.”

As I’ve looked at Genesis over these weeks, for some reason I’ve imagined a person…perhaps it’s you, or me…sitting in the dark. It’s pitch black, and you really have no idea where you are. You literally cannot see your hand in front of your face. Perhaps you are in a coma. Perhaps in a cave, or a tomb. You have no idea if you are with another person or not…there’s no indication anyone is around. All you know is that the silence is black and deep. And you sit.

“In the beginning, God.” Perhaps we should just stop right here. Just the first four words tell us enough, perhaps, to make us uneasy. We live, by and large, in a God-denying world. We live in a world which said long ago, “Whatever we cannot understand about the physical world, we will attribute to God.” And as we have learned more and more about the physical world, the areas of our ignorance have shrunk, so God has shrunk until He is little more than an abstract good feeling.

We live in a God-denying world. We live in a world which claims that there is no such thing as absolute truth, and therefore it is up to each individual person to make or find their own meaning in life. The human being is everything. And so, to open this book that Christians have the audacity to claim tells the Truth…and to have that book begin with the words “In the beginning, God” is a little unsettling, perhaps. “In the beginning, God…” means that it does NOT begin with people. It does not begin with you or me. It does not begin with “This is the story of how humankind began.” In fact, we won’t even make it to the topic of human beings today. In the beginning, God.

The theological emphasis of the Reformed tradition of the Christian faith, of which the Presbyterian church is a part…is grounded solidly in these words. It’s no coincidence. In the beginning, God. We look first at God…in order to then understand who we are, and what life is about.

But in the modern day, many ways of thinking, even in the church, reverse this trend. Radical liberation theologies, radical feminism, radical womanism say, “Let’s figure out who we are. Let’s start with the human person, and then figure out who God is based on that.” No, In the beginning, God. Imagine…a book, a story that explains Life…and it doesn’t begin with US.

“In the beginning, God Created.” We might again stop right there. (Don’t worry, I’m not going to stop at every word in the first chapter!) God took nothing…and made something. He created…creation. The universe, the world came…out of nothing…or perhaps, out of disorder and utter chaos. And the hallmark of God’s creation…is order. In the beginning, God created. We can’t do that. At our artistic bests (which is the closest hint we have of this), we tend to use things already there and shape them. At our technological best, we copy. We clone, we duplicate, whatever it is …but we don’t create it…out of nothing. How does God do that?

We sit in the black room, in the dark, in the echoes…and suddenly…a Voice. We jump out of our skin. SomeOne is there. God speaks. God opens His mouth and speaks the world into existence. The Word goes out, and nothing becomes something.

It’s interesting, isn’t it…that in all the religious movies that have been made with scenes from the Bible, many things are portrayed: Moses parting the Red Sea, the giving of the 10 commandments, Jesus healing someone, even the crucifixion. But seldom does someone try to portray the moment of creation. There’s nothing to start with. Here there is nothing…and then there is something. It’s easier to do in literature, because in it our imaginations can run freely. Here’s C.S. Lewis’ picture of creation from the Narnia book The Magicians Nephew. I want you to settle in and listen, because it’s fairly long. If you don’t know about the Narnia books, it is a series of children’s books which I always say are “written for adults.” The main character, very interestingly…is not one of the children in the story, but a Lion, Aslan…who represents Jesus Christ. A boy named Digory sits in a vast darkness like we’ve described:

“In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing….it was hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise (he) had ever heard. … Then two wonders happened at the same moment. One was that the voice was suddenly joined by other voices; more voices than you could possibly count. They were in harmony with it, but far higher up the scale: cold, tingling, silvery voices. The second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars. They didn’t come out gently one by one, as they do on a summer evening. One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out -- single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world. There were no clouds. The new stars and the new voices began at exactly the same time. If you had seen and heard it, as Digory did, you would have felt quite certain that it was the stars themselves which were singing, and that it was the First Voice, the deep one, which had made them appear and made them sing. …

"The earth was of many colors: they were fresh, hot and vivid. They made you feel excited; until you saw the Singer himself, and then you forgot everything else. It was a Lion. Huge, shaggy, and bright, it stood facing the risen sun. Its mouth was wide open in song…

"The Lion was pacing to and fro about that empty land and singing his new song. It was softer and more lilting than the song by which he had called up the stars and the sun; a gentle, rippling music. And as he walked and sang the valley grew green with grass. It spread out from the Lion like a pool. It ran up the sides of the little hills like a wave. In a few minutes it was creeping up the lower slopes of the distant mountains…”

In the beginning, God created.

In the beginning, God created… the heavens and the earth. God created the heavens and the earth…the sea and the sky…the water and the land…the light and the dark. God created plants and trees and sun and moon and stars and swimming, swarming, creeping, walking, breathing creatures. In the beginning, God created…everything.

Genesis tells us immediately…that the creation is different from the creator. They are distinct, separate. God, in fact…created creation. Creation is in a particular relationship with God, based on one thing: God chose to make it. And we are called to worship the creator…not the creation.

This summer, I stood on a beach on the Washington coast near LaPush, on a backpacking trip with my son Nick and two other dads and sons. We stood one evening and watched the sun setting, a pink and orange ball heading down into the ocean. Color bouncing off of waves and pine trees and rock formations far out in the water. The moon beginning to be visible high in the sky. Incredible. Maybe the prettiest thing I have seen in years. Creation is God’s handiwork, it leaves us in awe, it points us towards God…but it is not God.

This immediately distinguished the God of Genesis…from the many gods of the Middle East in the early centuries. In the days of old, the sun, the moon, the stars all were gods in different manifestations, all to be feared or worshipped. By comparison, in Genesis, these beautiful things of creation are just that…part of creation. They are described in an almost utilitarian way: as lights for the day and night. They are not gods, they are light bulbs. There is only ONE God…the God who created the heavens and the earth.

In the beginning, God created…all of creation. I don’t know if you keep up on the debates of evolution and creationism. I first became interested in the topic long ago, during college. In the years since, the conversation has become much more complicated. There are myriads of different positions taken by both Christians and non-Christians.

Some believe the world started from a random Big Bang. Some believe that creation happened in exactly six 24-hour periods. Some believe Darwin’s theories and interpretations explain the origin of life. Others believe they may hold for changes within a species, but see little evidence for more than that. Some believe that humans originated in a kind of primordial cosmic soup kitchen.

Some say people who doubt evolution are blinded by their faith. Others say that they have never seen greater faith than that required to believe in what is taught as evolution. And on it goes, back and forth.

There is currently an increasingly interesting school of thought called “intelligent design.” Intelligent design theory says that “the complexity of plant and animal life suggests that a higher intelligence, rather than evolution, brought them into being. It does not attempt to name the intelligence.” Yet most of the proponents of the theory are Christians…people who are interested in at least bringing to the “origin of life” discussion table the idea…that life did not start randomly. In December, in fact, according to Christianity Today, the Ohio State Board of Education will vote on whether to allow high school science teachers to present design theory alongside evolutionary theory.

I’m not interested today in getting into that whole discussion. Actually, I AM interested, but we don’t have time right now! I find the discussion over HOW the universe was created to be fascinating. But the “WHY” and “WHO” questions of creation are more important. This morning, I’m not trying to get you to sign on to one particular position or another. But I AM trying to have you hear what I believe the first chapter of Genesis presents as its clearest and most foundational message: The world did not come about by accident. “In the beginning, God created.” There was a creator, purpose and intentionality. The creation is not an accident.

Now this raises as many questions as it answers. If we are going to give thanks to God and praise Him for His good creation, if we honor and worship Him for what is so beautiful and good…Then one must also be willing to ask the question: when life in creation goes awry (earthquakes, tidal waves, etc)…is this also from God? Is it a flawed part of his design? It hardly seems fair to give God the praise for the good, and absolve Him of everything else, does it?

Genesis will not shy away from such questions, as we continue in these weeks to come… But it WILL say, first and foremost…that creation, that LIFE is not an accident.

On this foundation, the thread of the story will run through all the rest of scripture…Genesis will say that the God who created sun and moon, land and sea, plants and animals…is the same God who stepped towards and called the Patriarchs of the Old Testament. The rest of scripture tells us it is the same God who opened his mouth and called together a people, Israel, by delivering them. The same God spoke through the prophets, pleading and shouting at his people to return to Him.

The same God stepped towards all people in Jesus Christ, the same Jesus who died a lonely death on a hill…and THAT was no accident either. The same God who raised Jesus from the dead, is the same God who longs to lift us out from whatever dark tomb we may be sitting in, wondering if there really is anything out there. Genesis boldly starts it all, and shouts out: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

It is this sacred history which we rehearse, which we remember and which we are called to be part of. One way is through the confessing, not only of our sin…but of our faith in a God who is with us from beginning to end. I want to invite you to turn to the back page of your bulletin, and confess with me, and with the church down through the centuries, The Apostles’ Creed. Let’s stand:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I belive in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.