Genesis 1:1-2
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
At the heart of the first creation story is the chaos of disorder. The earth had no form, indeed there was nothing recognizable as earth. There was a void, a gaping emptiness, utter nothingness. And there was complete darkness, not a speck of light at all. Allow yourself to ponder these images for a moment and you will likely find yourself slipping into a sort of angst that comes only in nightmares. This sort of chaos that is described as preceding God's ordering of creation is an existential crisis; what would it be like not to exist? It is also a crisis of control. Even those of us who aren't control freaks acknowledge a profound need for predictability and order in our existence. Natural laws are called that because certain things do indeed occur naturally every time without fail: the sun rises every day, objects fall down not up, solid objects are hard, water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 (at least at normal pressure). And that is the point, even in the most rock solid of laws there is some room for exceptions. When exceptions to natural laws occur, at minimum they raise our interest and at worst they cause panic. We have a need, if not to be in control, at least to trust that things are under control. It is natural to associate the absence of God with things being out of control.
We fool ourselves when we think we can control very much that happens in our lives. Anyone who has been devastated by illness or injury, or anyone who has been unemployed for a long time, or anyone whose house was in the path of the tornado can attest to that. We certainly can't control other people, ask any job supervisor, teacher, or parent! Even military leaders and prison guards would have to agree that there are limits to coercion and force in controlling the behavior of others. Even when we do everything right to influence
others we know that much of the time it either has little impact or sometimes none at all.
It is easy to feel the chaos of a crowd. Particularly when you are in the minority, you might feel that everyone else is out of control. There is little that is more frightening and dangerous than an out of control mob. Even when a crowd is not quite a mob, there can be a worrying crowd mentality that takes control over what individuals might do on their own. Sociologists would tell us that evil is often institutional, that is existing outside the individual, such as in a time of war when there is cultural tolerance, even encouragement for torture or other typically unjustifiable behavior.
We have all known times when our own control seems lost due to peer pressure. In the end, the only control we truly can claim is control of ourselves. And even there we can struggle to reign in our own desires so that we control them instead of being controlled by them. Addictions of all sorts threaten to be the controlling factors in our lives. There is at least one space in each of us that requires us to admit that we are powerless and require the higher power of God to restore us to sanity. It is that place where we encounter the chaos that existed before God brought order to creation. It is that place where we recreated that primordial chaos that always exists where God is not welcomed.
Chaos is at the heart of the creations story, but it doesn't have the final word.
The Spirit of God moves over the face of the waters and transforms chaos into the miracle of creation. We know that chaos in our own lives. There is so much that we have no control over. Accidents and illnesses happen despite our best intentions. On any given day we might show up at work and be met with the unwelcome changes that we had no way of anticipating. Consider the destructive chaos that the tornado left in its wake.
Yet as terrifying as it is to feel that the chaotic circumstances of our lives might destroy us, we know that chaos doesn't have the final work in the creation story. Before creating life itself, God created spaces for life to inhabit. God created the heavens for the winged creatures, the earth for the animals, and the seas for the fish and sea creatures. God created ordered space for life to inhabit, before God filled those spaces with life.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
If you ask any one of us about a time when we were sure that we were going down for the third time, we might get a faraway look on our face and tell you the story about the word or simple gesture of kindness from a stranger or a friend that helped us to see just a little light on the horizon, just enough to help us face another day. We’ll want you to know just where we were and how close we were to going under, when a loving hand reached out to us and helped us to pull our head above water.
It's human nature to feel anxious and afraid when things are falling apart all around us. We want to push back at unwelcome circumstances that threaten to bring chaos into our lives. But if we do that, we may risk forgetting that it was God who made space for us in the chaos by breathing life over the primordial abyss. If we push back at unwelcome circumstances we may risk losing touch with the tenderness of our own broken hearts right there where the darkness overwhelms us.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
If we trust that the Spirit of God is everywhere with us, creating sacred space for order and healing to enter our lives, we will have the courage to hold back despair. When I look into the eyes of the children each week as I share God's message of love with them I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that darkness and void do not have the final word. The Spirit of God is still moving over the waters and we are created anew with every breath we take.
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