Genesis 1: God

 I'm just a person who is reading the Bible. I'm working really hard to imagine I am reading the Bible for the first time. I have no experience in the Biblical languages of Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic. I can only read English--which means I have to trust those who do have experience with those languages and who have translated those languages into something I do have experience reading. That's not to say that English is easy or easier; it's just native, to me. Being able to read the Bible in English is a great thing, but it also requires no little amount of faith. Yet I trust the mustard seed (oops! I'm not there yet!) will be enough. 

I'm trying to imagine that I have not been in church since the day I was born and that I never went to Bible College or read commentaries on nearly every book of the Bible. I'm working really hard to imagine that I my brain is tabula rasa which I have no doubt is impossible. I cannot escape all of my preconceived ideas or thoughts no matter how badly I want to or try to. 

So, Genesis 1. This is the land of beginnings...the place where, of all places, the author of Genesis chose to start his or her narrative. It's the place where most of our world finds themselves at odds, especially this first chapter where I read that in this beginning, in the beginning, God did something: he created. He opened up time and space for us. He created space for everything we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel to exist. It means it has not always been here and there was not always room for me or you or us. It means that if God was the one who did the creating he must have been here before all of this. He (I use 'he', but when thinking about God, I really have no idea what that means) must have made space outside of himself. 

Which brings me to God. It is interesting to me that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but when he created them and first beheld them, they were 'without form and void' and they were inhabiting a place where there was only darkness. I don't know what the 'face of the deep' means or was. I assume it was something ugly, perhaps that's what it was like just before Planck time. I don't know. But I also see that the darkness that was over the face of the deep was not alone because the Spirit of God was also hovering over the face of the waters. Maybe deep and waters are the same. Maybe this is a Hebrew parallelism, poetry in some way. If darkness was there, personified in some way, it was not alone and it was not going to rule. Darkness is foreboding and this particular darkness seems to be a darkness that is a deeper darkness than we know. (I am reminded of the darkness that covered the land at the crucifixion, but that's getting ahead of myself.) 

God. I mean, when I read through chapter 1 of Genesis (or whatever we might call these words in the absence of artificial chapter and verse divisions), I am astonished at this actor on the stage, this actor called God. He steals the show, he is in the spotlight, he is doing all the work, and he is the only one who is worth any of our astonishment--unless, of course, you wish to praise the darkness. But the first thing I see is that God said, 'let there be light.' The Darkness is apparently no match for God who simply banishes the Darkness (I assume with the creation of light we have moved beyond Planck time.) And the darkness and the light shall not meet because God 'separated' them. Did he draw one out of the other? Did he put a dividing wall between them? Did he step between them like a parent steps between siblings who are about to come to blows? 

There's too much here to take in in one sitting. I want to think about this 'god', this actor on stage, this creator for just a minute or two. Look at all these verses tell us about him and the things he does and did before we were brought into the drama (and I'm not going to cover all of it tonight.) In the beginning God created. Some folks thing that because we don't know how God created means that we don't know that he did do it in the first place. God is hidden in the mystery of his own work, our gaze is cut-off from viewing exactly the machinations that were involved in this creation process. It seems incredible to think about though. Yet I don't think we are entirely without understanding because this God who created also spoke. 

We are only a few words into the story before we learn that this God who existed, this God who created, this God who is Spirit, and this God who separates is also a God who speaks. I know it is a radical and overly simplistic idea to say that everything we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch is the result of someone simply speaking them into existence. Yet here we are. I suppose people can argue up and down the Euphrates river about mechanisms for speciation and variety--go on, if you like; that really doesn't bother me any longer. All I know is that this book I am reading tells me that there was a beginning, that God was before the beginning, and that it is here because God, this God, did something that we take for granted every day: he spoke. 

I probably need to think about this some more because this is information that is, again, astonishing. Who was there to hear? Who is this that the darkness and the light obey him? Who is this that the winds and the waves obey him? What sort of power is this that can simply speak worlds and light into existence? But perhaps even more: this God speaks! If this God speaks and if we can hear, then ought we not be listening? Did this God stop speaking when the light came on and the darkness fled? This God talks! It also seems that light and darkness have the sense to listen when this God speaks. I don't know what that means, but I think it has something to do with power and recognizing where it comes from, who possesses it, and who does not possess it. 

I think there is a lot more to say about this God who speaks, who spoke, and continues to speak. God speaks and what he says happens, without fail. God speaks and there is no stopping the action of his words. God speaks and his voice is mean to be heard. God speaks and who or what can withstand the force of his words? God speaks and things happen in the universe. God spoke and the lights came on. In the beginning God created. Doesn't say how he created, just says he did. And his Spirit hovered. And then God spoke and things really took off. I think that might be significant. 

That's all I want to say tonight. I'm thinking deeply through this and I'm in no hurry. 

jerry