Thought for Today
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,
Genesis 2:3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.
Mark 16:15 And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.
Romans 1:20 Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.
“Calvin often referred to the heavens and the earth, the works of God, as a theater in which the creator’s glory can be seen (1.5.8; 1.6.2; 2.6.2). This most beautiful theater enables faith to see that ‘wherever we cast our eyes, all things they meet are the works of God’ (1.14.20)” (Coffee with Calvin, pg. 4)
This morning, as I enjoyed my coffee with Calvin, I noted that our earliest ancestors-in-the-faith, as they developed the revelations and inspirations which ultimately resulted in the Bible, began not with a statement of purpose, but rather with a statement of observable fact.
Maybe I spent far too many years as an engineer, or maybe it was all the years I was engaged in capital construction projects, but every time I try to solve a problem or to begin a project it all begins with a statement of purpose. That statement of purpose is an answer to the most complex, difficult and confusing question in the English language, “Why?”.
Every parent painfully remembers that age when one’s child seems to have a 1-word vocabulary, “Why?”. “Why is the sky blue?” “Why do I have to eat my vegetables?” I must confess that sometimes (far too often?) I resorted to “Because I said so!” At other times I might say, “Because that’s what color skies are.”
Why did God create the heavens and the earth? Maybe at some point during my Orientation to Heaven, I will get an answer. Maybe, ultimately, the answer is ‘above my paygrade,’ or, maybe I am not capable of understanding the whys and wherefores of the actions of my Creator God.
The psalmist doesn’t seem to get directly to the point of the whys of Creation. However, the psalmist did ponder, “8:3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; 4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?”
As I think about those ‘morning coffee’ words above, I suspect that Calvin himself was less interested in the whys of Creation than he was awed and amazed by the beauty, the variety and the complexity of Creation. I really like “This most beautiful theater.” What a wonderful phrase capturing the awesome magnitude of God’s handiwork of those six days of Creation.
Where do we all stand in terms of “Why?” Although I cannot answer the psalmist’s question, I must acknowledge the truth of verse 5, “Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.” I have written about this verse before; and, especially about the translational problems and the variations of “a little lower than God,” “a little lower than a god,” “a little lower than the angels.” Irrespective of how we translate that phrase, it is undeniable that God has dramatically demonstrated God’s preference for humanity.
As I think about the ‘why’ of it all this morning, my mind returns again and again the John 3:16-17. I believe that God created Creation because God is love. Creation is the penultimate expression of God’s love. Because God loved Creation, the physical representation of God’s love, God sent Jesus into Creation.
For me, one of the most comforting passages in the Bible is, “Romans 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I agree with Paul. Nothing within Creation, the physical representation of God’s love, can separate us from God’s love and from the ultimate fulfillment of God’s love, our salvation through our faith in God’s Son.
Stay safe, bask in the love of our Creator God, trust God,
Pastor Ray