Origin Story #10 of 21:

God blessed the seventh day and made it holy,

because on it he rested from all his creating and making work. (Gn 2:1-3)

At the completion of all his creating and making, the Creator rests. It’s been a wild and turbulent journey creating space for life to flourish. And now, the seventh day God sets apart for us to delight in all the wonders of creation. With its cadence, rhythms and repeated refrains, our origin story sounds like a hymn of praise to our Creator:    

                        God said …let there be

                        And it was so…

                        And God made…

                        And God saw that it was good.

It’s a majestic hymn of the faithful who “by faith understand that the world was created by the word of God” (Hb 11:3). When we enter into this hymn, we prepare ourselves for the hymns we will one day sing before the Throne of God (Rev 4:11):

You are worthy, our Lord and God,

      to receive glory and honor and power,

for you created all things,

      and by your will they existed and were created.

God works on creation by his Word—his speech carries weight. It makes things happen. God cares about it all—that’s why he speaks into the void. Yet God remains different from it all. He’s not an object of creation. He is the uncreated ONE. We would not expect to discover God through scientific investigation of the universe. He’s not there as other objects are there. So David C is not wrong when he says, “Modern science can find no direct evidence for a god.” (p. 25) That’s not where God is found. God Almighty, creator or heaven and earth, “is high and lifted up” above his creation, though “his glory fills the whole earth”. (Isa 6:1-3) If one is attentive and open to such possibilities, there is a good chance one will see something of God’s glory in his creation. It’s the stuff of poetry and song—of art and wonder.

To our surprise, this majestic hymn of creation is not the whole of our origin story. Genesis one hymn of creation will now be followed by a more intimate story of creation. That’s how worship works (Lk 2:14):

Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!

From “God in the highest” to “peace on earth”. From God big and removed, to God moving close and intimate. Our origin story moves on to tell of our “high and lifted up” Creator moving in close to his creation and his creature. A love story unfolds between God and his creation. It will be a stormy love story. Sometimes we wonder if God really cares. Will he stick with his creation? That’s the Gospel Story.