In The Beginning God...

Today’s Reading: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. – Genesis 1:1

There is so much in these four words; so much that flies in the face of what many call wisdom and knowledge.

I, like many others, grew up in a world driven by logic. The strongest example of such logic of course is the scientific method. I love the scientific method and I believe it is a very reasonable way to approach understanding the world around us. But, this is one thing that it will never be able to grasp.

In the beginning God…

We base our process of understanding the world by looking at it from the perspective of what we can observe. We have spent thousands of years refining these tools of observation. We built telescopes to observe the cosmos and microscopes to uncover the mysteries of small things but no matter what we cannot escape the fact that our observations have a serious limitation.

They are limited by what we can observe.

Is there anything beyond our ability to see, hear, taste, touch and smell? If so then what is it? Are we even capable of observing such things, and if so are we capable of observing all of these things so that we may grasp an objective view of the world?

Though we may try of course the answer is no. We can only observe from our frame of mind and that capacity is limited by our perspective. So what are we to do with the beginning of things? How are we to understand them? This is something that bothered me for quite some time.

As I have grown in my faith I came to understand something very simple. When it comes to the beginning of things everyone, and I mean everyone, speaks from a place of faith. If you believe in God then you believe that God somehow is the author of the beginnings. If you believe in many gods then you believe that there is a narrative of that beginning that supports all existence. If you don’t believe that there is such a thing as a god at all then you have to believe in human understanding, even with its limitations.

What do I believe? I believe that in the beginning God created all things.

What do you believe? Why?

In the Beginning (the Remix)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. – John 1: 1-5, 14

Today’s Reading: 2 Kings 7-9: John 1:1-28

Wow… what an opening line!

Let’s flash back to the very beginning for a second. This is an interesting twist on the first “In the Beginning”.

Remember the original creation story where God said let there be light and it was? Then God continued on to speak things into existence; the sea, the earth, plants, animals, etc?

The way that John is flipping it here is pretty profound. He’s saying that Jesus is the word of God. But what does that mean? I don’t think that anyone can definitively say but let me share with you my train of thought here…

So, God created everything through speaking it and Jesus on earth was the “Word of God” in the form of a man. Jesus walked the earth providing us with the perfect model for how we are supposed to live our lives. He performed miracles that healed, fed, and nurtured. Any time his disciples’ faith wavered he clowned them for having little faith. He suggested that we could do all that he did here (in terms of healing, miracles etc).

In essence… Jesus provided the example for how we can be the word of God…

Now before you holy rollers get all worked up into a tizzy…here’s what I mean.

When we look at the history of humanity we see that humans have the ability to build or destroy. We have evolved in both ways. As society has moved forward we have created new and more efficient ways of doing both things. We have developed agriculture to the point of being able to feed billions with just a few resources; very much like how Jesus fed thousands with a few loaves of bread and fish. On the other hand, we have created weapons that with the push of a button can destroy life on this planet as we know it.

We cannot create a blade of grass but we can nurture it so that it grows, or we can stomp it out and destroy it.

Jesus came to teach us how to nurture, how to build, how to heal. He came here to teach us how to love. It is through the love of God that all things were created and Jesus was the greatest teacher of that love.

So I see these few cryptic verses as a challenge to do my part to spread that love.

If God is love, then when we show love, we are messengers of God. We are active parts of God’s ever evolving creation.

In The Beginning...

Today’s Reading: Gen 1-3; Matthew 1

I love the first two verses in the first chapter of Genesis:

Verse 1:“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Verse 2: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

These two verses have always made me wonder why people think there must be some huge conflict between science and God. When I read these verses it’s like WAIT A MINUTE.

There’s a lot missing there.

I see in my imagination millions of years flying by. I see the birth of a universe (perhaps one of many) and the development of stars and planets and galaxies. I see how life on our planet has evolved species by species to the point where we are today. In the seven days that God created the world I see seven ages and many millennia. A lot of hard core Bible literalist might disagree with me on this.

And I’m ok with that.

I have come to understand that the Bible is the story of God’s relationship with people; but on a very need to know basis. Does that mean that the Bible is a fairytale? No. On the contrary, I believe it is the truth. However, I don’t think that the Bible needs to explain how the dinosaurs came and went in order for it to be accurate. The truth that I see is a spiritual one; which is perhaps why at times it is so hard to understand with our limited minds.

What I see in the disciplines of mathematics, physics, and chemistry is a study God’s blueprints of the universe. Nature abides by certain rules and it is our growing understanding of these God given rules that has allowed us to search deep into the cosmos as well as deep within the contents of cells. And with open minds perhaps faith and science together will help us all to be better at searching deep within ourselves and each other to see the miracle that our continued existence represents.