Archive for the ‘Creation’ Category

Day 211: Job 10:1-12:25, Acts 19:13-41 — Who Curdled My Cheese?

Friday, July 30th, 2010

I’m writing this after returning from a short business trip. Most of these thoughts came from my mind after as we descended from 30,000 feet into the Austin airport. I had just endured a 2 hour delay in the Chicago airport (stunning I know) after my previous flight had also been delayed. I began to wonder why the airline seats can wreak such havoc on my skeletal system and whether if I sat just the right way the seat could actually put my spine back into place.  If it can move my bones one way, why not the other? The problem is a little thing called entropy and the second law of thermodynamics. Without specific corrective care (energy put back into the system) my spine will continue to get worse, not better, especially in the closed environment of an aircraft hull.

How does this relate to our scripture? Like I said, it’s late and so this may make no sense at all.  But we don’t live in a closed system. God lives outside of the universe he created and can provide the anti-entropy medicine that we need so often. Job constantly reminds us of this as he is reminded of it himself.  I was particularly struck by Job 10:10 “Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese?”  Now, Job is a book of poetry but I don’t think we’ll be incorporating this line into our praise songs anytime soon. I mean just finding words to rhyme with “curdle” and “cheese” would take a stroke of genius (or maybe just cheese). But it reminds us along with the rest of the passage that God is the one who created and is in control of it all.  And this is even a more personal creation. It reminds me of the book (which I have not read but need to) “Who Moved My Cheese?” The book discusses how we deal with change.  Rather than asking who is to blame (as Job’s friends are doing), ask what we can do in spite of the situation to survive and make the best of it. Job’s handling of the situation puts into perspective my complaints of airline delays and hard seats.

Another verse that is intriguing but I can’t fully comprehend in my current state is Job 12:11 “Does not the ear test words as the tongue tastes food?”

And speaking of entropy…

How about those Ephesian riots in Acts 19:23-41? A mob mentality is no stranger to us.  We’ll riot if our team loses the championship. We’ll riot if our team wins the championship. Luckily it only took a little common sense injected into the situation to calm things down and disperse the crowd. “Does not the ear test words as the tongue tastes food?” Maybe, but I’ll have to think about that some more.

Thanks to the Southwest pilots who provided us safe travel and to the stewards on the flights who provided an entertaining take on the security policy.  And thanks to our God who gave me safe travel and who reduces entropy by curdling my cheese.

Mmmmmmmmm cheese.

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Day 141: John 1:1 — Logos/Word

Friday, May 21st, 2010

John 1:1 (Prologue) contains three short phrases. Each phrase builds upon the other creating a parallelism — “in the beginning was the Word (logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Prologue draws on the Word of God in the Old Testament. The creation accounts in Genesis reveal creation from God’s spoken word. He spoke creation into existence, He spoke through the law at Sinai. He spoke to and through the prophets. The Word in John reflects both the word and deed of God. The Word links with Jewish wisdom tradition. In Proverbs 8:22-31, Wisdom has been God’s companion “before the beginning of the earth,” working alongside God logosto accomplish God’s plan for humanity. John reshapes the wisdom tradition to reflect the historical reality of the incarnation. In the use of logos, then, John has chosen a term familiar to both Jews and Greeks, but uses it in a new context.

John 1:1 stresses the eternal existence of the Word with God, an existence outside the bounds of time and history. The opening words of John 1:1, “in the beginning…,” recall the first words of Gen 1:1, but point to a time before the creation of the world. Creation is not spoken of until John 1:3. The eternal Word will not stay outside of time and history. The Word enters into our history. The contrast between the eternal and the temporal is seen in the contrast of the “to be” verb with the verb “to become” or “to come into being.” John proclaims that the Word is fully God. This is similar to Paul in Philippians 2:6 when he reveals that Jesus “was in the form of God” and was equal to God. Through this phrase, John states that the Word is what God is and the Word does what God does. John tells us that when one sees Jesus, one sees God; when one hears Jesus, one hears God (e.g., John 5:37-38; John 8:19; John 14:9-11). The oneness of the Word and God means that the revelation spoken and enacted by the Word makes God known (John 1:18).

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Day 117: I Samuel 2:25 — “It was the will of the Lord to put them to death.”

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

I love this passage! It is one of the passages in the Old Testament that shows the “good news” and “grace” of our God. You see there is a false teaching that has infiltrated our world, our lives, and our church. It is the false teaching that God is not just. You see it in those who would teach we have grace without consequences. These are code words for “God is not just”. If this passage of God’s will to put someone to death shocks you, it is a good sign that you have been infiltrated by this false teaching. I would suggest that you do not understand justice. You do not understand God. You do not understand the creator. This is a story of sin and its consequences. Eli’s sons are sinful and even Eli warns his sons (1 Samuel 2:22-25). I love this passage because just like so many other sin and consequences stories if you look for it there is judgment and the grace of God involved and vice versa. We, like Eli’s sons, deserve death but in 1 Samuel 2:26, we see there is one who is growing in stature with God and man. This is grace and hope. In the midst of judgment God has a plan to redeem us.

I love this passage because in God’s justice, we are all deserving death, yet God our creator chooses to prolong our relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. God sends His son through history to save us and pay the price for our crimes. I deserve death but the good news is that I am still alive.

However, we must not be fooled…having a relationship with God is both demanding and dangerous. Those who would serve God place themselves under both God’s grace and God’s judgment. I love this story because God is just. I don’t have to make sense of a world gone bad but I know who is in control and who is worthy to be worshiped. I don’t have to seek a warm fuzzy feeling to know God. To know God is to be judged by Him and to be judged by Him is to receive His grace. Grace and judgment are intertwined and to try to separate one from the other is foolishness. Do we really want justice (1 Samuel 2:25) or have we gotten used to injustice (we should be able to sin like Eli’s sons with no consequences)?

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Day 53: Leviticus 17:1-19:18; Matthew 28:11-Mark 1:13 — Cosmic alignment

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

cosmosCosmetics. Cosmos. Words we hear often, sometimes in the same day, perhaps never in the same context. For the Greek geek in me,  I have to say they are related to a root meaning an orderly arrangement. The “world”,  cosmos,  has a wonderful, awesome order and meaning, and I suppose our faces should be orderly, too. So, the wonder, the order, the created designs may be seen in us, but extend to all things in the universe. Order out of chaos, this is the way of God.

Our Old Testament readings command respect and order in worship of the LORD. I cannot just go out anywhere and do whatever I want and call it worship. As adults, we are far past that simplistic childhood stage of “drawing worship” in any fashion we fancy with crayons of ignorance or self interest and saying, “Here, God, you like anything we do, don’t you?” My back yard and my kitchen are, indeed, places to pray, Philippians 4:6-7. I must offer daily sacrifice and priestly service, Romans 12:1-2. Also, I must present myself with that Divine body, the church in corporate and communal expression of worship to God, Hebrews 10:25, etc. The worldly worship, worldly–another derivative of kosmos, yet with a negative meaning–cannot be given to our Holy God. What our neighbors do, what the world, that system around us, thinks cannot be handed off to God as though He as a beggar should be glad to get anything at all!  And, we would not dare think of sacrificing our children to Molech, but will we sacrifice our children to our own selfish designs of what we call worship and spirituality? Our daily, holy living, our corporate worship must be purposeful, and purposefully driven as God speaks to us through the Spirit in the lives and designs of those Spirit-led apostles and Christians of the Bible, Acts 2:36-42.

The holiness code of Leviticus speaks to the created order and design of human sexuality. Our sexual appetites were made by our Creator for wonderful purposes of life, the intimate, powerful expression of total commitment and reflects the wonder and beauty of  God’s own creative powers. Marriage itself, the Divinely prescribed context of that expression, speaks of the absolute love and commitment of God Himself. The widely, worldly, witless expressions of human sexuality touted as natural and flung in our faces today are of the essence of chaos, the exact opposite of created, Divine design and orderliness. They oppose Divine love, and lead only to depraved, and monstrous consequences physically and spiritually, Romans 1:18-32. The mere cosmetics of sex will fail to bring about the Cosmic designs of love.

And, then, what shall we do with Jesus? Obscure the fact of resurrection? “Preposterous!” we say. Yet the worldly, and the worldliness in us, may seek to hide the reality of His presence, His Lordship. Do we want, honestly, the cosmetics of living without the reality and Creator of the Cosmos? The New Testament reading provides a serendipity, perhaps bad English but good theology. We finish reading of the failed attempt of the world to cover up the resurrection, only to begin again in Mark, Mark 1:1, to explore the wonders of God in His Christ. Each day is a Cosmic event,  to seek God in this day, to surrender my chaos to His design, His order, His will, His blessing. How shall the young and old order and secure their lives? Psalms 119:9-16.

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Day 1: Genesis 2:1-3 – What Does Rest Mean To You?

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. ” (Genesis 2:1-3, ESV)

As we begin our daily Bible Reading for 2010, we are blessed with the story of the creation. The creation story is pretty well-known, but as you read into chapter 2, it is obvious that we are reading the completion process of the creation.  On the seventh day, God finished His work and rested.  I know that there are many theological arguments that can be made and are made.  Putting them aside in the context of this brief posting, I want to focus on the model of resting that God gives us.  God models rest.  Rest is part of the created order.  It will later be commanded because of man’s fallen nature.  Rest is important to our created order.  Yet, we have lived and we continue to live in a world that pushes us further and further away from rest.  I myself have struggled with rest…endless deadlines…the demand to put more hours in…the weariness and exhaustion…selfishness… narcissism, etc.  Why? Many of the projects once important are no longer satisfying.  Is Genesis reminding us that God created all things and that we are under His control?  Rest is essential for us to be what God intended.

At our church, we have been participating in 40 Hours of Prayer.  In one of my prayer sessions, I was focusing on rest.  To be quiet and listen to God.  I had the hardest time.  I could not be still, I was constantly interrupting the quietness with thoughts of things that need to be done.  I felt as if my prayer had to be a to do list.  I had to mark off each person on my list I was praying for.  Is rest, is quietness, is being still and knowing who God is an activity or is the moment set aside for rest, a moment when we need to listen?  I believe that quietness is not a time of emptiness, or worthlessness.  In reality, these rare moments of quietness and stillness when we can really be still and rest, we come to know God.  It is that moment of rest that is holy, it is a moment when God speaks and we are in awe of the silence.  These are moments of substance!

Question:

What does rest mean to you?  How do you dedicate (make holy) time spent with God? If God modeled a time of rest, why don’t we?

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