The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Even at the beginning of creation and the beginning of the narrative of salvation history presented in Scriptures the whole Holy Trinity was present. The Spirit hovered with dynamic power, the Father spoke, saying "Let there be light", and the Son himself was the Word spoken.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made (see John 1:1-3).
God himself created the entire world, not out of any preexisting material, but ex nihilo, from nothing. Unlike the common creation myths of the world God did not simply refashion something that already had being, nor transform a part of himself into the creation. Rather he simply spoke and it was so. Because of this we can have confidence that creation and the material world are not evils to be contrasted with a purely spiritual realm. God himself was the origin of the material as well as the spiritual and he himself "saw how good it was".
Then God said,
"Let there be light," and there was light.
God saw how good the light was.
The created light was meant to be a visible sign of an uncreated light. The whole creation, because it came from God, could become a transparent communication from its creator, and this at two levels. On a natural level the whole creation proclaimed the greatness of the creator, one who was all good, all knowing, and all powerful.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork (see Psalm 19:1)
This was the natural revelation of which Paul wrote to the Romans, asserting that "his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made" (see Romans 1:2).
But there was a second level by which creation could communicate divine realities, and we might call this its sacramentality. Because creation was made and is perpetually sustained by God he could communicate through it in a more direct and supernatural fashion. Creation was opened outward to him in such a way that he could speak to Moses through the burning bush and even take flesh in the person of Jesus himself. God did not create a world that was closed to him, into which it would be impossible for him to speak. Rather creation seems to have been ordered toward his self-revelation. It seems very much to have been designed as the stage for precisely that.
On one level the created light of this world pointed to attributes of God's knowledge and his goodness. But on another level the created light was a sign pointing to the full revelation of this light and goodness in the person of Jesus himself.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (see John 1:4-5).
In the creation narrative from Genesis we see very clearly that nothing in creation stands in any way positioned to rival the creator. The "two great lights" were not gods themselves, there governance of the cycles of day and night was merely a reminder of he who governs all things wisely.
O LORD, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom have you made them all (see Psalm 104:24).
This transparency of creation to creator is precisely why it is so natural and necessary that Jesus acted as a healer of both body and soul. The sicknesses he encountered were not a part of his original good design for creation, not integrated into that spoken word that was entirely good. And so he came to speak that word again clearly, fully enunciated, recapturing the goodness and wonder it was always meant to contain. Humans were always meant to be the recipients of divine revelation, always supposed to be open to the spiritual dimension that gave rise to the material one. And all of this was marred by original sin. But Jesus addressed himself to this deficiency exhaustively and completely, in each case healing the whole person, reestablishing their identity as loved ordered unto God and loved by him. He himself was the powerful word sustaining all things (see Hebrews 1:3). Even a small contact with him was sufficient for all he came to him.
Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered,
they laid the sick in the marketplaces
and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak;
and as many as touched it were healed.
No comments:
Post a Comment