Order out of Chaos
Notes
Transcript
1 Corinthians 14:33 (CEB)
God isn’t a God of disorder but of peace.
Despite what the bulletin says, I decided to title this message: Order out of Chaos.
This is what we see God doing from the very beginning - which we will look at in a moment. I believe it is ingrained in each of us, since we are made in his image - a desire to bring order out of chaos.
Each time my daughter visits her grandmother in Georgia, one of the activities they do together is assembling jigsaw puzzles. Rachel really enjoys spending hours taking all these tiny, uniquely shaped pieces scattered around in a chaotic mess and piecing them together in the order in which they were intended - creating a beautiful masterpiece.
This past week, Krista, the kids and I went up to Philly to see and hear a young singer songwriter from Oklahoma named Zach Bryan perform in concert. What I noticed about Zach’s songs, which is true of a lot of artists, is that he often takes the chaos of life: broken relationships, the loss of a parent, dysfunctional family dynamics, generational angst, hopeless situations - and works them into beautifully crafted songs. He orders the chaos in his lyrics and it resonates so deeply with his fans that his shows are sing alongs - a stadium full of young people standing the entire time - singing along - word for word - every song throughout the whole performance.
Every week at One Mission Cambridge, people come through the door seeking help in bringing order to chaos. Poverty, broken families dynamics, poor decisions, unforeseen circumstances, unjust situations, whatever it be - the result is a disordered life in need of transformation. One Mission is churches working together - so the people come hopeful that the Church can bring things into order.
Because God is a God of order.
Let’s turn to our text this morning out of Genesis and see for ourselves.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
There are several ancient origin stories that tell of how it all began. One that is often compared to the Bible is the Babylonian creation account called the Enuma Elish. According to the Blue Letter Bible website, Enuma Elish describes an age when the only thing that existed was uncreated world matter. The matter was personified by a male and female being - Apsu and Tiamat. Apsu, the male, represented the fresh water ocean while the female Tiamat, represented the salt water ocean. Their union produced other gods.
In this origin story, the gods fight each other. Apsu became upset and decides to kill his offspring. His plans were discovered by the great god Ea who killed Apsu. Ea then had a son, Marduk, who rises to supremacy over the other gods of Babylon. Tiamat is eventually killed and her body is divided in half; one half was used to create the sky while the other half was used to form the earth.
Man is then created for the purpose of serving the gods - since the lessor gods felt is was below them to do work.
In the Egyptian creation account, according to another educational site, we read how the sun god Ra created his son Shu and daughter Tefnut and they worked together to create order in Nu - the chaos of the universe. They created humans from tears of happiness and then made Yah the moon, Geb the earth, and Nut the sky. Multiple gods attributed to what the ancient people could see: sun, moon, earth and sky.
The Bible stands in stark contrast to all other accounts. There is only One God and His Word is powerful and mighty. He speaks and the world comes into being. He needs nothing from man, but he supplies the needs of all that He creates out of His loving care.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
The One God creates everything. Creation is the result of conflict among gods - God speaks creation into being, bringing order out of chaos, and he calls it good. According to the Bible, the sun and moon are created objects - not gods themselves. In fact, the sun and moon are not even referred to by name - they are simply lights:
And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars.
When we read the first chapter of Genesis closely, an ordered pattern is revealed. The book of Genesis, in fact the first five books of the Bible referred to as the Pentateuch, has historically been attributed to Moses - and to fully appreciate our origin story, we need to try and read it in the context it was written, among an ancient Jewish people freed from slavery by a loving God who promises to redeem his whole Creation.
In the beginning, God created. This was an act of will from our Creator. As on commentator put it, creation is not an extension of God’s nature - inseparable from who He is. That is the thinking of those who believe the universe itself is God and we, being a part of universe, are therefore God as well.
The biblical view is clear - God has always existed - and God chose to create.
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
“without form and void” - there was a time when there was no order, no function, nothing existed.
If you visit the National Cathedral in DC, above the front doors you will notice a dramatic sculpture titled “Ex Nihilo” - latin for “out of nothing” which was created by Frederick Hart. It depicts God’s creation of mankind out of nothingness - a swirling, wind blown, universe with four humans emerging out of it.
God bringing order to chaos.
In his book, The Lost World of Adam and Eve, the author John H. Walton explains that “In days one through three (of Creation), we find that the discussion centers on the ordering of the world in terms of what could be identified as the major functions of human existence: time, weather and food.”
Day 1: God says “let there be light” and there was. He separates the light from the darkness - calling one day and other night. You may have noticed that the sun, moon and stars do not come along until day 4.
According to Walton, “the alternating periods of light/day and darkness/night constitute the origins of time. Time orders our existence. It is a function, not a material object. On day one God creates day and night - time.”
Day 2 - separation of the waters above from the waters below. The ancient people would have known that water either comes up from wells or lakes - or it comes down from the sky. This expanse that God created, this space between the sky above the held back the waters and the earth below is where all living creatures function. This is where weather patterns form.
Day 3 - God gathers the seas together, he reveals dry land and tells the land to produce vegetation - each plant according to it’s seed. Apple seeds produce apples, grape seeds produces grapes.
Time, weather, and food.
There is a designed structure established.
In the first three days, God has established the heavens (or sky), the earth, the seas. Now days 4-6 he populated them. Each in the right order.
Day one: light and dark.
Day four: the sun, moon and stars are put in place.
Day two: the sky and the waters below
Day five: birds in the sky and fish in the sea
Day three: the ground appears
Day six: animals and all creatures that move on the ground, as well as the formation of humans.
God is a god of order.
It is also worth noting that today in the church calendar is Trinity Sunday. The Sunday the church draws attention to the triune nature of God. Father, Son and Spirit. We see the first hint of this nature in the very beginning of the Bible.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
He says “Let’s us make man in our image.” Then it reads “So God created man in his own image.” Pretty interesting.
So out of the darkness and chaos of nothingness, God creates and does so with order and function. Why did he do this? What is the purpose of Creation?
I would argue that the purpose is found in Day seven.
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.
What does it mean to rest? Did God need to take a nap? I don’t think so. On Day seven, everything he created was working as it was designed to work. God creation was operating according to His will. Humans received their assignment - we were to be vice-regents, stewards, overseers - managing well what God had created and in doing so, living into our purpose and flourishing.
God’s Creation was designed to be His Temple. The place where he reigned and his creatures flourished. Later in the story, we read in Genesis 2:8
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
I want to focus on the first part of that verse. God was walking in the Garden.
Where God walks is sacred space. He had taken up residence. Day seven, the time of rest, is not referring to sleep or leisure. Again, from John Walton:
“The rest he offers his people refers to freedom from invasion and conflict so that they can live at peace and conduct their daily lives without interruption. It refers to achieving a state of order in society.”
He goes on to say:
When Jesus invites people to,
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
he is not offering a nap…he is inviting people to participate in the ordered Kingdom of God, where, even though they have a yoke, they will find rest.
You know the rest of the Creation story - we live out the consequences every day. The deception of the serpent, the rebellion of the Adam and Eve, the entrance of sin into God’s created order and the death and destruction that followed.
Disordered lives. Dysfunctional family structures. Violence and greed. Chaos and confusion.
But you should also know that God did not give up. He is redeeming His Creation. That is the great story of the Bible. That God did not abandon Adam and his descendants to sin and death. God set in motion a rescue mission whereby sending His only begotten Son, he would redeem the world.
Jesus said...
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
All that was undone by sin is being brought into submission to God as Jesus continues to work through His Church.
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.
We are closer to that day when all things will be brought into order when Christ returns. In the meantime, it is the work of the church to continue to bring order out of chaos.
There is a lot of chaos and confusion in world today. A lot of disorder. But you are called to be the salt of the earth and the light to the world.
Remain in the Lord. Fill yourself with the truth of His Word. Reflect his glory.
There is an end game. One day God will once again take up residence on the earth.
There will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Night will be no more. They won’t need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will shine on them, and they will rule forever and always.
Amen.