This month I have started to preach through the book of Genesis. This is exhilarating. I grew up in Sunday School hearing these stories Sunday after Sunday. I can still see the images from the flannel board as the days of Creation were explained or the story of the flood was told. I can still remember the pictures from the Sunday School book of Abraham placing Issac on the alter or the image of Joseph and his brightly colored coat. But working through these stories once more to preach on Sundays, I feel like I am hearing the stories for the first time.
Case in point, two Sundays ago I began preaching the Creation story, covering the opening verses of Genesis 1. When I was a child, I would listen intently as the teacher would tell us what God created on each day. On day 1 God created light. On day 3 God created the plants. I always remembered this day because it was the day God created Lima beans and Brussels sprouts. YUCK! On day 5 God created the birds and the fish. (I wonder did Day 5 or 6 include the dolphins?) God creating man on Day 6 always got the special attention. This was how I heard the Creation story. Not exactly a science lesson, but as I was taught, listened, and remembered the Creation story, it was very scientific in nature. This is not what the Creation story is all about. Yes, knowing God created all these things is important, but it is not the point the author intents to make clear.
As I worked through the Creation narrative (it is a story after all), I began to discover so much I had never seen before. Genesis 1:1 is the introduction to the story. Genesis 1, in fact the entire book of Genesis, is a story of God creating everything. Genesis 1 tells us God created all of reality, both the things we can see (bumble bees) and the things we can't see (the cell in your arm). Genesis 1 makes clear that God is the creator God and He alone could do the creating. But the rest of Genesis tells us that it is God alone who creates, destroys what He creates, recreates what He created, creates the covenant, creates His people, and creates the plan of redeeming His people. Genesis 1:1 is the introduction to the whole story. It is not the first act in a sequence, but an overview statement for what the story teller is about to unravel and unpack in this great epic.
This is where my discovery of Genesis as something I truly did not know began. Genesis 1:2 is not the second step in a sequence, but the setting of the narrative that is about to be unfolded. Most great novels and stories open with a few statements of setting. For example, "In the hole in the ground there lived a hobbit", is the opening line of the "Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien. This is a setting statement. It is a stage setter. It sets the stage for what is about to take place. We know there is a hobbit in this hole and the story of this hobbit is one of great adventure where he leaves the hole to go on an epic quest.
Genesis 1:2 is exactly the same. Before God begins to reveal Himself in 7 days of action (the 7 days of Creation) there must be a setting, a scene, a starting point for the story to launch from. Genesis 1:2 makes it clear, the stage and launching point is a situation of chaotic, empty, lifeless, and purposeless existence. This situation of "bad" is where a good God launches His creative acts from. That means, Creation is a story about a good God ordering the chaos, filling the emptiness, giving life and existence a purpose. This is what the 7 days of Creation are about. This realization is what I discovered for the first time as I began to prepare messages to preach from Genesis.
Genesis 1:1-2 is not a story about a "gap theory", an old earth argument, a literal 6 days of action, or even a science text book to discuss precreation and creation theory. Genesis 1:1-2 is the setting for the epic narrative of a God of goodness, order, structure, life, purpose, and grace, filling this reality with His purpose and grace for all of what He created (which is everything) to enjoy and delight in. After reading and preaching Genesis 1:1-2, I am finding myself delighting and rejoicing in the Creator God in a deeper fuller away now after I understand what He truly wanted me to know about Him from the Creation act. Do you let God's amazing Creation epic drive a delight for Him, in you?
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