Epiphany 1
GOD’S CREATION AND THE WORD
Genesis 1:1-5
In the beginning
The first verse of Genesis begins with like this. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Don’t you feel a little strange? Who was able to see God’s creation of the heavens and the earth and to write it? You may think it as following way? Though nobody was able to see God’s creation event God told it later to the author of the Bible. Such thinking is right only half. Basically the Bible delivers God’s will. At this point the thinking that God had informed the creation event to the author is right. However, it is wrong to say that God told the creation event to the author by the way of direct speaking. The important point while we are reading the Bible is that the authors of Bible didn’t describe their direct experience but conveyed after editing the transmitted stories. Then some may think the Bible is the mere collections of man-maid story not God’s word. It is not. God conveys his will through human’s thinking. It doesn’t mean that man can realize the truth by himself but can be a way of communicating truth. At this point, man’s thinking is very important when God says. If a man can think rightly then God can reveal God’s will through his thinking, otherwise delivers the Evil’s word. We believe the author of Bible basically understood God’s word rightly and conveyed it. So we have to give our concern on what and how they thought. What did the author of Genesis think in today’s contents?
The author explained about God’s creation event. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” When was ‘in the beginning’? Modern physics says the age of the universe as 12 billion years. Then does ‘in the beginning’ the author says indicate a moment of 12 billon years ago? It is not. The Bible is not a kind of book to provide information about physics and biology. When the Bible was written people neither knew the age of the sun and nor had concern on that. They were perplexed before the fact of shinning the sun and from there merely imagined the creator who made it.
According to the scholar of the Old Testament, ‘In the beginning’ is not an expression of dividing a certain point but point out the first thing God did, the creation of the heaven and the earth. Nobody knows what was and what had happened before the creation. This is the limitation of cognition human that we should accept. We are never able to catch up the difference between ‘something’ and ‘nothing’. Suppose here is a book. This book is burnt. Then we can say there was a book before burning and there is no book after burning. Basically the book has changed its form from something before burning to nothing after burning. However, we cannot say burning incident changed its existence itself. Likewise we cannot imagine the status the universe before God’s creation. We only can say there was ‘nothing’.
The author of Genesis doesn’t have intention to explain the exact point of creation of the universe. The author wants to reveal the fact that the first thing God had done was just the creation of the heaven and the earth. So we who accept the Bible as God’s word believe the universe including the heavens and the earth became being by God’s creation event. The world we confirm with our sense is the greatest event. It means at any moment we cannot deny or give up this world. We have to affirm this world despite many evil incidents happen for everything including the heavens and the earth are just the thing God had done ‘in the beginning’.
Light and darkness
When God created the heavens and the earth the universe was in chaos. Look at verse 2. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” We cannot explain this sentence demonstratively. We don’t know the reason of coming of the word ‘’the earth’ despite nothing was made. We cannot exactly follow up the meaning of ‘‘darkness was over the surface of the deep”. The people in ancient also might not know there was the earth under the bottom of the sea. However, such expression signifies that there was no form though God created the heavens and the earth. In such status of chaos the concrete creative event was happening. It might be a sequence for this universe to hold a certain order such as an embryo in a mother’s womb takes a concrete form of human after certain period.
The first form was light. The author explained it in verse 3. “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” What did light mean to the ancient people? Not only for ancient people, light have an absolute power for us too. All the things can reveal its form only with light. If there is no light then nothing can be seen. More basically, light is the power of life. Carbon dioxide assimilation of plant is the activity of light. It is the lowest layer of life phenomena of food chain happening in the earth. In very rare case life action is possible only with water but generally light becomes the foundation of life.
So, early Christianity connected light to God’s salvation event. Christmas can be a direct example. The reason of observing 25th of December, a few days after the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year as Christmas was that reason. The reason of observing Sunday as the Lord’s Day, Roman’s day for the sun not the Sabbath, the holy day of Judaism also was the same. Furthermore, Early Christian explained Jesus as light in metaphor. (John 1:1-18).
The light that the author of Genesis says doesn’t indicate a mere the sun. The sun and the moon were made much later in the 4th day of creation. It sounds a little strange. The light should be the power of the sun but the Bible doesn’t identify both. At this point the religion of Israel is distinguished with that of Rome, Egypt, and the religion of Incan Civilization. Such ancient civilizations served the sun itself as their god for their existence itself might be impossible without the sun. Of course Israel people also were not exceptional at the level of survival. They also felt the power of sun. However, the author of Genesis focused on the world of light rather than things itself as the sun. For them the sun was merely ruled over the world of light according God’s order. This light is the foundation of life that ontologically takes its superior position than the sun.
The author might think day and night as the origin, nothing related to the sun. God called the light "day," and the darkness "night" in verse 5. Day is the world of light and night is the world without light. As though we just regards light as the first energy of life original, according to today’s word, we can come to know the fact that the world of darkness also very important. God created light and divided it into light and darkness. After dividing the light and the darkness he called the light ‘day’ and the darkness ‘night’. At this point, not only the light and day but the darkness and night also are equally important in God’s creation action.
The Moderns are living in an excess of light. There is no night to the humans who invented the light through electronic. TV and computer that are ruling our daily life is just the operation of light. Are the moderns normal who has broken the darkness and are surrounded by the light one-sidedly? Though people may think this is the development of civilization it is nothing but a half of the light according to testimony of Genesis. If we don’t know the darkness we don’t know the light completely.
Do you nowadays experience the darkness? When I was young the darkness was so friendly to me. I used to play till midnight with my friends outside if the weather was not much cold. I used to play hide-and-seek in a pitch-dark. We used to experience unspeakable mystery of life when we looked up a night sky studded with stars. Where is the darkness, a half of light for us today?
The darkness, a half of light is so important at the philosophical level too. This world cannot be consist of the people belongs to the light only. It can be a complete human community when the people in the darkness get together. For example, think about the world without physically challenged people. Think about the world without shameless people, immoral people and violence committed by a criminal organization. Such world is impossible unless God’s kingdom begins realistically and though it is possible it is not much happy world. For, the world can be normally operated when the light and the darkness get together. Do not misunderstand. I don’t want to justify the evilness in the world. I mean to say such darkness is unavoidable for us and when we ultimately embrace it we are able to understand God’s creation.
The Words and reason
You might feel a little difficult to understand today’s sermon. Or some of you may think what relationship does today’s message have with our present life. I would like to summarize the foresaid points. I told you two points before. First, the confession of the author of Genesis that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” doesn’t mean to deny the world but to affirm it. Second, the creation of the light included the darkness means that we also affirm the fact of darkness in our life. Finally the creation theory in Christianity doesn’t’ take a stand against the theory of evolution but a religious confession to affirm this world. Then we can ask in this way, ”The world is created by God in that way may goes according to God’s will then we can live without anxiety.” Basically we can relax by believing God’s creation is for good. Though the civilization of human destroys the eco-system ultimately the God of creation may lead this world in new way. Basically we have to see this world optimistically it is not a mere romanticism. It is not a vague expectation that it may go well but need a clear recognition and judgment for toward the world. Why?
The author of Genesis testified God created the light with “the Word”. God said, “Let there be light.” The Word of God is the origin of creation. What does it mean? God created the heavens and the earth not like a magician who took out a pigeon and a rabbit from his black pocket but He created it with his Word. Christian theology says it as “the creation from nothing”. It is because God didn’t create this world with the certain materials but did it from the status of nothing with his word. What is the ‘the Word’ here?
The author of John explains, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Through the Word everything came out. The Word is ‘Logos’ in the Greek. The Logos has a meaning of ‘words’ and ‘reason’. Probably the ancient people thought the language as the power of reason. It is a correct interpretation. The language are developed more in a civilized place. Once the intelligence of children develops then they can speak and once a student’s study gets deeper then naturally he enters into the depth of language.
Do we a rational people? Do we a logical people? Are we using our language rightfully? Reason and language are the power of creation. It doesn’t mean the power of creation is given to us rather reason and the power of language can work creatively through us. Likewise, God is continuing his creative activity though the people who are entrusting themselves on ontological power of reason and language.
GOD’S CREATION AND THE WORD
Genesis 1:1-5
In the beginning
The first verse of Genesis begins with like this. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Don’t you feel a little strange? Who was able to see God’s creation of the heavens and the earth and to write it? You may think it as following way? Though nobody was able to see God’s creation event God told it later to the author of the Bible. Such thinking is right only half. Basically the Bible delivers God’s will. At this point the thinking that God had informed the creation event to the author is right. However, it is wrong to say that God told the creation event to the author by the way of direct speaking. The important point while we are reading the Bible is that the authors of Bible didn’t describe their direct experience but conveyed after editing the transmitted stories. Then some may think the Bible is the mere collections of man-maid story not God’s word. It is not. God conveys his will through human’s thinking. It doesn’t mean that man can realize the truth by himself but can be a way of communicating truth. At this point, man’s thinking is very important when God says. If a man can think rightly then God can reveal God’s will through his thinking, otherwise delivers the Evil’s word. We believe the author of Bible basically understood God’s word rightly and conveyed it. So we have to give our concern on what and how they thought. What did the author of Genesis think in today’s contents?
The author explained about God’s creation event. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” When was ‘in the beginning’? Modern physics says the age of the universe as 12 billion years. Then does ‘in the beginning’ the author says indicate a moment of 12 billon years ago? It is not. The Bible is not a kind of book to provide information about physics and biology. When the Bible was written people neither knew the age of the sun and nor had concern on that. They were perplexed before the fact of shinning the sun and from there merely imagined the creator who made it.
According to the scholar of the Old Testament, ‘In the beginning’ is not an expression of dividing a certain point but point out the first thing God did, the creation of the heaven and the earth. Nobody knows what was and what had happened before the creation. This is the limitation of cognition human that we should accept. We are never able to catch up the difference between ‘something’ and ‘nothing’. Suppose here is a book. This book is burnt. Then we can say there was a book before burning and there is no book after burning. Basically the book has changed its form from something before burning to nothing after burning. However, we cannot say burning incident changed its existence itself. Likewise we cannot imagine the status the universe before God’s creation. We only can say there was ‘nothing’.
The author of Genesis doesn’t have intention to explain the exact point of creation of the universe. The author wants to reveal the fact that the first thing God had done was just the creation of the heaven and the earth. So we who accept the Bible as God’s word believe the universe including the heavens and the earth became being by God’s creation event. The world we confirm with our sense is the greatest event. It means at any moment we cannot deny or give up this world. We have to affirm this world despite many evil incidents happen for everything including the heavens and the earth are just the thing God had done ‘in the beginning’.
Light and darkness
When God created the heavens and the earth the universe was in chaos. Look at verse 2. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” We cannot explain this sentence demonstratively. We don’t know the reason of coming of the word ‘’the earth’ despite nothing was made. We cannot exactly follow up the meaning of ‘‘darkness was over the surface of the deep”. The people in ancient also might not know there was the earth under the bottom of the sea. However, such expression signifies that there was no form though God created the heavens and the earth. In such status of chaos the concrete creative event was happening. It might be a sequence for this universe to hold a certain order such as an embryo in a mother’s womb takes a concrete form of human after certain period.
The first form was light. The author explained it in verse 3. “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” What did light mean to the ancient people? Not only for ancient people, light have an absolute power for us too. All the things can reveal its form only with light. If there is no light then nothing can be seen. More basically, light is the power of life. Carbon dioxide assimilation of plant is the activity of light. It is the lowest layer of life phenomena of food chain happening in the earth. In very rare case life action is possible only with water but generally light becomes the foundation of life.
So, early Christianity connected light to God’s salvation event. Christmas can be a direct example. The reason of observing 25th of December, a few days after the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year as Christmas was that reason. The reason of observing Sunday as the Lord’s Day, Roman’s day for the sun not the Sabbath, the holy day of Judaism also was the same. Furthermore, Early Christian explained Jesus as light in metaphor. (John 1:1-18).
The light that the author of Genesis says doesn’t indicate a mere the sun. The sun and the moon were made much later in the 4th day of creation. It sounds a little strange. The light should be the power of the sun but the Bible doesn’t identify both. At this point the religion of Israel is distinguished with that of Rome, Egypt, and the religion of Incan Civilization. Such ancient civilizations served the sun itself as their god for their existence itself might be impossible without the sun. Of course Israel people also were not exceptional at the level of survival. They also felt the power of sun. However, the author of Genesis focused on the world of light rather than things itself as the sun. For them the sun was merely ruled over the world of light according God’s order. This light is the foundation of life that ontologically takes its superior position than the sun.
The author might think day and night as the origin, nothing related to the sun. God called the light "day," and the darkness "night" in verse 5. Day is the world of light and night is the world without light. As though we just regards light as the first energy of life original, according to today’s word, we can come to know the fact that the world of darkness also very important. God created light and divided it into light and darkness. After dividing the light and the darkness he called the light ‘day’ and the darkness ‘night’. At this point, not only the light and day but the darkness and night also are equally important in God’s creation action.
The Moderns are living in an excess of light. There is no night to the humans who invented the light through electronic. TV and computer that are ruling our daily life is just the operation of light. Are the moderns normal who has broken the darkness and are surrounded by the light one-sidedly? Though people may think this is the development of civilization it is nothing but a half of the light according to testimony of Genesis. If we don’t know the darkness we don’t know the light completely.
Do you nowadays experience the darkness? When I was young the darkness was so friendly to me. I used to play till midnight with my friends outside if the weather was not much cold. I used to play hide-and-seek in a pitch-dark. We used to experience unspeakable mystery of life when we looked up a night sky studded with stars. Where is the darkness, a half of light for us today?
The darkness, a half of light is so important at the philosophical level too. This world cannot be consist of the people belongs to the light only. It can be a complete human community when the people in the darkness get together. For example, think about the world without physically challenged people. Think about the world without shameless people, immoral people and violence committed by a criminal organization. Such world is impossible unless God’s kingdom begins realistically and though it is possible it is not much happy world. For, the world can be normally operated when the light and the darkness get together. Do not misunderstand. I don’t want to justify the evilness in the world. I mean to say such darkness is unavoidable for us and when we ultimately embrace it we are able to understand God’s creation.
The Words and reason
You might feel a little difficult to understand today’s sermon. Or some of you may think what relationship does today’s message have with our present life. I would like to summarize the foresaid points. I told you two points before. First, the confession of the author of Genesis that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” doesn’t mean to deny the world but to affirm it. Second, the creation of the light included the darkness means that we also affirm the fact of darkness in our life. Finally the creation theory in Christianity doesn’t’ take a stand against the theory of evolution but a religious confession to affirm this world. Then we can ask in this way, ”The world is created by God in that way may goes according to God’s will then we can live without anxiety.” Basically we can relax by believing God’s creation is for good. Though the civilization of human destroys the eco-system ultimately the God of creation may lead this world in new way. Basically we have to see this world optimistically it is not a mere romanticism. It is not a vague expectation that it may go well but need a clear recognition and judgment for toward the world. Why?
The author of Genesis testified God created the light with “the Word”. God said, “Let there be light.” The Word of God is the origin of creation. What does it mean? God created the heavens and the earth not like a magician who took out a pigeon and a rabbit from his black pocket but He created it with his Word. Christian theology says it as “the creation from nothing”. It is because God didn’t create this world with the certain materials but did it from the status of nothing with his word. What is the ‘the Word’ here?
The author of John explains, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Through the Word everything came out. The Word is ‘Logos’ in the Greek. The Logos has a meaning of ‘words’ and ‘reason’. Probably the ancient people thought the language as the power of reason. It is a correct interpretation. The language are developed more in a civilized place. Once the intelligence of children develops then they can speak and once a student’s study gets deeper then naturally he enters into the depth of language.
Do we a rational people? Do we a logical people? Are we using our language rightfully? Reason and language are the power of creation. It doesn’t mean the power of creation is given to us rather reason and the power of language can work creatively through us. Likewise, God is continuing his creative activity though the people who are entrusting themselves on ontological power of reason and language.
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기