In the beginning - Sermon 9th January 2011

Are you sitting comfortably …then I shall begin….Once upon a time –

Isn’t that how all the good stories start? Or at least it used to be when I was a small person. Now however, when I open a book to read I would be surprised to read those sort of words, instead I would open a book in anticipation of what was going to unfold as I read. What characters were to emerge, what was going to be the twist in the plot. And as I opened the opening chapter I would expect to be given a foretaste of this. I would expect to be exposed to the lead character and get a hint of the plot.  I would hope that the opening chapter would give me a bit of taste to wet my appetite to carry on reading, to give me just enough intrigue to motivate me to carry on rather than simply turning to the last chapter to see what happened in the end.

This week as we start with the E100 bible reading challenge are readings are set at the beginning of what has to be the greatest book ever written – the Bible.  And as we start these readings just like we would expect from a good read we are exposed to the key characters within it, we are exposed to what the story is going to be about, and we are invited to discover more. And as we do this I hope that you will find like me that you want to discover more and your appetite is wetted to do just this. The readings from this week are set at the beginning of the Bible – like the opening chapter of a novel. So do we get an inclining from these readings about the key themes and characters? Well very clearly yes, as our reading this morning from Genesis has shown the central characters we are going to see within the bible are two – God and mankind. This is going fundamentally to be a story about the relationship between the two. And as we start our readings we see clearly that the central plot is all about God’s love of mankind whom he created and his desire for Mankind to respond to that relationship. Within this we are invited to find out more and the big question underlying this - how do we as individuals now fit into this plot- what does any of this have to do with me?

This morning I want to look at an overview of our readings this week but also to think how the stories we will be reading help us to understand more about God and how words that we read that were written so many thousands of years ago we can still learn from, and the lessons we learn can have application for our lives now.

The readings as we have said start at the beginning of the bible and this week cover creation, the fall of mankind, Noah and the flood and the tower of Babel. In many ways they are difficult readings for us in the 21^St Century. Our own scientific advances have made us question the reality of these stories. So before we look at them in more detail I want us to pause just at this issue. How do we as Christians now look at these accounts in terms of whether or not they are a true reflection of what happened at the beginning of time. Obviously we all have to come to terms with this in our own particular way but I have found what is helpful is to think in terms of the stories representing the truth of God’s plan for the world. Even if we do not think the events took place exactly as represented by the Bible, the truth is that this is God’s word to us and this word represents God’s truth. In other words even within these accounts a true picture is represented of what God is like and the stories represent great truths of God to us today.

So with this in mind let’s just have a quick overview of the readings for this week. Genesis starts with the creation of the world. Key to this is the words that are spoken of how God views his creation. What struck me as I read the account in Genesis 1 was the pleasure that God took in his creation. It was good, comes time and time again. It was good. God created a good world and he created it for man to enjoy and to live in. He creates man clearly in his image – man is different from the rest of the created world. And man has a special place in the world and a special place with God. Man is created to live in relationship with God and man is created to be God’s representatives on the earth.  This was God’s intention. But he didn’t create man as robots but he created man with free will and therefore the first humans decided that they knew best, they thought they could be independent from God and this in turn led to the fall of creation and humanity. The consequence of their rebellion was alienation from God and the created world now being disrupted – “cursed is the ground because of you” – Genesis 3: 17

What a start to our story,  it started so well there was so much love and such perfection and it ended so badly ….is there any hope? Well as we read on this week we will see just that. As we read on we see God’s pain but also a hope for once again the world in relationship with him. Our next story is the difficult story of Noah, a story which we see represented in so many children’s bible story books but a story which leaves us with huge questions. But the hero of the hour is the man Noah who we are told clearly in the text is obedient and faithful to God – Noah is a righteous man we are told. And it is this obedience to God that is noticed and even though God is deeply grieved by what has happened to humanity and how they have turned away from him he sees in Noah faith. And it is through this faith that Noah is saved from the flood, and we then get God’s covenant with Noah that this will not happen again. The story of Noah although difficult for us perhaps to understand points to a story of salvation that we will be seeing much later on in our readings when we move to the New Testament and see the story of salvation through Jesus Christ.

And then our final story this week is the little account of the tower of Babel seen in Genesis 11. The tower of Babel shows God’s response to the pride of Mankind in building this tower. But God’s response is clear he knows that this pride will lead them away from him. So he demonstrates that he is ultimately in control of what happens to humankind and he wants to restore the proper relationship between himself and us again.

So what do we learn about God in these passages? When we look at these pictures we begin to get a picture of what God is like, what he finds pleasure in, what gives him pain.  Some people say I can’t believe in a God that sits and controls us… where we are merely his puppets and he is pulling the strings. Or some people say I can’t believe in a God who allows such pain and suffering in the world; perhaps leaving us with a picture of a God who just sits and watches and perhaps enjoys seeing us getting things wrong.  Well here I get a picture of a very different God to any of these perceptions.  The God I see within these passages is a God who is a God who deeply loves and cares. A God who is affected deeply by what he sees in the world. A God who grieves for our sin because he knows what pain this leads us into.

In the beginning God created the world and it was good. He took great pleasure in what he had created. And we know also he took great pleasure in the crown of his creation humankind. He created us in his image for a purpose. Perhaps we too get more of an understanding of his purpose when we see the first recorded words of God: “Let there be light”. Yes, in this case he was creating the heavens and the earth, the stars and the sky, but it seems also that this light can be seen in more than just the physical sense of light. God’s desire above all else if for us to know light in our lives, light in the physical sense yes, but light too in the way to live our lives, the way of finding God for ourselves, light in sense of knowledge and truth. And through these stories we see hope that one day we will find that knowledge again – that light in the darkness as we saw echoed in John 1. – The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not been able to overcome it.

So God takes pleasure in his creation and in his relationship with humankind and he desires us to find this again through the light of the world. But we see also how God is pained by the behaviour of Humankind and the sin that comes with this behaviour. God doesn’t just not care about what is going on – he cares deeply. He sees the pain that we are in and he cares. He cares because he knows that this sin leads us to feel pain not only through our own actions but through the actions of others. Psychologists will tell you how what we do and have done and indeed what has been done to us can have an influence on our lives for many years to come.  That’s the reality of sin and God doesn’t just not care – he cares about this deeply, because of his amazing love for us as our creator.

           

So these passages give us an inkling of the rest of the story as we see the key characters and the relationship between them – God and humankind.

So how can any of this apply to our lives today 9^th January 2011.  As we see the picture of God in these stories, as we realise his creative power, his absolute love and care for creation and particular his desire for us to be in relationship with him; God gives us an invitation. This invitation isn’t to some one off event, but this invitation is for life, because God invites us to experience his grace – his love for ourselves. Noah was a man who was found righteous who lived by God’s rules even though the culture of the day was not. Then Noah through his obedience to God was saved.  God has promised not to do the same again in terms of a flood, but God invites us like Noah to enter into his grace and live in obedience to him. The big question for us all is are we willing to accept this invitation.