A NEW YEAR’S SMILE: “IN THE BEGINNING”

A NEW YEAR’S SMILE: “IN THE BEGINNING”

by John Upton

Being the beginning of the new year, I thought it would be good to start with the first words of the first page of the Bible’s first book which happens to be, “In the beginning.” It goes on, hear it again,

“God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void and darkness hovered over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God brooded over the face of the waters and God said, ‘Let there be light and there was light, and God saw that it was good.”

Such beautiful words. Actually, this is a song. It is a song of deep, deep truth about the world, about us, and about the creating ways of God. It is a song of magnificent understanding.

What the song imagines first is a fathomless expanse of water in pitch black darkness. The story doesn’t begin with nothingness; it begins with a world unlit, completely covered by deep water, void of any life, and all of it in total darkness. This is not a song of nothing at all; it is a song of the absence of meaning, absence of boundary and order, absence of anything alive. It is a song of the Spirit of God in this darkness, hovering over the deeps.

The Hebrew verb for hovering is the same for a bird hovering in air, as a mother bird broods and hovers over her young. Here, above the formless void in utter darkness, is a presence of brooding love. Then, there is a voice, God’s own voice, breaking through infinite silence, “Let there be light!” And there was light. All it took was a word from that voice.

There is even a refrain in this song. Isn’t it nice there is a refrain in the first song of creation? After each day’s creative work— after God speaks into being the land, the sun, the moon, the fish, the birds, and all the animals—there is this chorus every single time, “And God saw it was good.” After humans were made, the refrain gets an extra word, “God saw it was very good.” Another way to translate it would be, “It was umm, umm, good.”

At first glance, this glad song in today’s world may ring a little hollow. There is no need to go over all the litany of what is cruel and ugly and absolute madness in our time. Maybe this glad song saddens us a bit, for it would mean a world that was very good is what we have poisoned and desecrated and turned into the scenes of our crimes against each other, against ourselves, against God. Can it be good again? Look around you; can it ever be good again? As Frederick Buechner asked, “Does the Spirit of God move over the face of the turbulent waters of our age, is the God who created us brooding over our darkness?”

To answer that, let’s look at another scene. It is the scene of Jesus beginning his public ministry, which is another way of saying, “In the beginning.” On the first day, the first thing he does is go into the waters. There were many people there bringing their sins to the river, all wanting to wash their sins away and be re-created. Jesus wades into it until the waters surrounds him. He lets himself be taken hold of by a man called John, who lays him back until the muddy waters have covered his face. He sinks into the darkness, and John pulls him back up dripping into the light.

Then, there in the sky, a dove is descending, hovering over the waters again. Again there is a voice, a glad voice, “You are my son, my beloved, in you I am well pleased.”

This is not only Jesus’ story; it is our story as well—those of us who ventured into those waters with him. What does this mean? You and I have a beginning. We have many beginnings. In the beginning that was our birth. In the beginning that was our baptism. In the beginning that was beyond time when God first dreamed us all. In the beginning that is this very day, this very year. The Spirit of God hovers over you and me. It hovers over us no matter how dark or in what depths we may find ourselves today. God is brooding over us to create newness, hope, strength, forgiveness, and purpose. The voice still says, “You are my beloved, my own child, live your life into my good pleasure in you. My love speaks over you and says, ‘Good, good, very good.’”

Happy New Beginnings from your BGAV family!

John Upton is the Executive Director of the BGAV.