From the Rector
The two creation stories at the beginning of the book of Genesis are rich with God’s passion and purposes for life. In Genesis 1:2 the author tells us that the earth, in the beginning, was “without form and void” - best understood as undefined chaos – called “darkness upon the face of the deep.” By the power of God’s ruach (which means wind or spirit), that undefined chaos is named and refined for six days. We see that God is the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen.
In the second story, associated with the Adam and Eve account, God’s Spirit “formed Adam of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living being.”
In both of these ancient accounts of God’s intentional creation of all that is, including human life, we see the awesome force of God’s Spirit, making something from nothingness, forming, shaping and breathing life from formlessness and chaos. The two creation stories speak to us of God’s power to design and create. I think of this as the first creation.
In Holy Week we get a different glimpse of God’s creative powers. By choice, God has come among us in the human flesh of one new being, Jesus of Nazareth. God became fully human and in Jesus attempted to convey the deepest hopes and dreams for humanity that rest within the divine soul. God is not a tyrant and does not force the human race to receive, accept and surrender to the divine initiative Jesus called the Kingdom of God. And in spite of his preaching and healing and loving people so unconditionally, Jesus is rejected and is murdered through state sanctioned capital punishment and religious jealousy and contempt for God’s desire to do a “new thing.”
God is creative and loving, infinitely forgiving. God seeks to create new ways to counter human indifference and cruelty. God is perpetually doing a “new thing” and his answer to Holy Week betrayal, violence and death was the second creation – resurrection. Jesus is vindicated. God’s original intention for a mature, reasonable, passionate and loving humanity, from the earth and good, is fashioned anew in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. God raises Jesus from a cold tomb and a new creative spiritual force of goodness and holiness is unleashed from the loving heart of God. Easter is the season where the church not only marvels at the resurrection of Jesus but embraces its deepest meanings. God’s love cannot and will not be destroyed by the will of any human being or government. God cannot be defeated. God is love. Find a time each day in this Easter Season to quiet down and pray – 20 minutes of silence before God – who can be trusted to do more for you than you can ask for or imagine. God’s creative power is at work within us; our task is to learn to cooperate!!
Faithfully,
Merrill
