Origin Story #4 of 21:

The earth was without form and void,

and darkness was upon the face of the deep;

and the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light. (Gn 1:2-3)

When God the Spirit stirred the chaotic waters of darkness, God the Father Almighty speaks into the darkness: “Let there be light, and there was light.” The formless universe begins to take shape. Four days of God’s attentive work forms a world fit for abundant life.

The first three days clear some space for life to flourish. Light is separated from darkness and given a name: “God called the light Day, and darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” Next, God “separated the waters from the waters… the waters above God called Heaven.” Then God clears some space within the waters below:

And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear."

And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

And God said, "Let the earth bring forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth."

And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a third day. (Gn 1:9-13)

With water ordered to its proper place, the earth is now empowered to “bring forth” all sorts of lush vegetation. The dark watery chaotic formlessness, over which the Spirit broods, is yielding to God’s speech. It’s being formed into a world that nourishes and sustains life.

The stage is set for abundant life. Or, almost set. God decides to populate the realms of day and night, that were created on the first day, with a sun to populate the day; and, a moon to populate the night. That’s one of our story’s odd things that I said we would owe up to. We were moving along nicely until this. Some say Christ himself was “the light of the world” before the fourth day. Or maybe, as some scholars suggest, it’s a way of demythologizing the Sun gods and goddesses (like the Egyptian Ra) and Moon gods and goddesses (like the Greek goddess Salena). As enchanting as these heavenly spheres are, they aren’t really gods, they are God’s handiwork—God’s gift.

For now, let’s just stick with our origin story as we have it and see how it goes. According to our story, God places these spheres in the sky “for signs and for seasons and for days and for years.” These heavenly spheres set in order our yearly rhythms of days and seasons: winter and summer, seedtime and harvest. They set in order as well our scared days and seasons to celebrate our Creator like Advent, Christmas and Easter. There’s still plenty of room for enchantment—in sunrises and sunsets, in moon lit nights. It’s the stuff of poetry and song.

So now, after that fourth day, everything is set for abundant life. That’s how our origin story goes. It’s not so different from David C’s “modern science origin story”. In his story, the one without a Creator, the Big Bang eventually forms into stars and galaxies that light up the dark void. It’s full of interesting scientific observations like the idea of “structured flows of energy” that causes me to think of our story. Here’s another example:

The spooky thing about life is that, though the inside of each cell looks like pandemonium—a sort of mud-wrestling contest involving a million molecules—whole cells give the impression of acting with purpose. Something inside each cell seems to drive it… (p. 76)

You can’t blame folks like me, who love the bible’s origin story, for seeing something of our story in David C’s Origin Story; can you?