The
God of the Bible, from the very first line of his Great Story, shows himself to
be a creative and vibrant God. He creates out of nothing. He spoke, and there
was. He speaks and there is! And the first thing he spoke into existence is
light. Adults overlook details which seem unnecessary. It is that whole time
thing. We're on the clock; therefore, anything that is not productive, we excise from our lives! We have to be getting better or worse. Because that is what you do to
pass the time; you measure it.
But what if God is not like that?
Is there such a thing as ‘getting
better in his eyes? Or getting worse? Though created in God’s image, we live
our lives in such a way that we think of him in ours. We project our
unsatisfying humanity onto God assuming he operates as we do. Because we are
obsessed with getting better or worse, we imagine, even if unintentionally, he
must be obsessed with us getting better or worse. We are making him in our
image, rather than asking to see as he sees, rather than allowing him to
re-mold us back into his likeness.
You know one of the first things I
learned when God let me see through his eyes: Paul is not really handicapped. He
is a picture of our souls in God’s Kingdom one coming day. But we cannot enjoy
that story because we are obsessed with ourselves. We cannot enjoy walking on
water because we know we should not be walking out here at all! And so I
overlook details in the story that do not help me get better, whatever the hell that means.
Therefore, I overlook the magnitude
of the opening sentence. God, perfectly complete, spoke and created. He did not need to create. He was not lacking
anything for there was nothing but himself and God was complete, complete three times over! We do not know what he was thinking, what he was feeling. The author forgot
to mention those details, incoincidentally.
What we know is what he said; and
what he said was “Let there be…” And
there was.
The first theological truth we get
of God our Creator is that God is an artist.
And he brings things to life.
To
be, to exist, to live, that is the foundation of this Story’s Author. To call
nothing something, that is what makes God happy. To make positive out of
nonentity, this is the first act of the Great Story’s drama.
As the curtain opens, nothing becomes something!
The language of God is to create.
We speak and arguments arise,
misunderstandings splinter and leave scars.
But when God speaks, creation
blooms. Life is!
This is huge. Because in a world
where death seems the only unavoidable certainty, in this Great Story, we are
confronted with the startling fact that there is something deeper, something
more foundational and certain than death…and that is life.
‘Let there be’ is what he said.
Let there be. Let there live. Let
there exist from that which was not, something that is.
God is a living God who creates creatures
to live, with him. Death is not the final
answer. And here in this first chapter, we see that death was not even a
part of God’s creative process. In his one magical thought, he did not even
consider death; for what is death to the living God? Life is the foundation of
this universe since the living God is the Creator of it. This is very comforting…especially
from where I sit today, growing older, wearier, wrinkles popping up like cracks
in the desert.
Near the end of CS Lewis’ first book
in The Chronicles of Narnia, the main
character Digory approaches Aslan the Lion, the Creator of Narnia, to ask him
to cure his mother’s sickness. He reasoned that if Aslan could sing a land into
existence, the great lion might just have a tonic to heal his mother as well.
And even though Digory was full of grief and terribly afraid of Aslan, he
worked up the courage, approached the lion, and asked him to heal his mother.
What happens next, Lewis writes of
the encounter, “Up till then he had been looking at the Lion's great feet and
the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he
saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was
bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the
Lion's eyes.”[i]
So many times I get lost in the stories
where God appears bloodthirsty, vengeful, where he really scares me. And
rightfully so! God should always terrify us. He is a lion with sharp claws and
the fear of this unpredictable and wild lion is the beginning of wisdom.
Yes, he is the ferocious, untamed
God with terrible power, and a mysterious nature. Yes, he is not domesticated
and what we say to him has absolutely no bearing on what he decides to do. But
so much of the time all I can see are his claws; so much so that I forget the
first moment we are introduced to our Creative Lion. In this first chapter, he is creating life because creating brings
him joy. And we know it brings him joy because it always says that he looks
at what he creates and he calls it good.
There are tears in his eyes as he
speaks (or sings) life into being. Yes, he has powerful jaws; he is the
uncreated God. But there are tears in his eyes. He is a good God. We can never
forget that. And it is shining out to us from the very first line.
[i]
“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew,” CS Lewis
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