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"Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures,
and on the earth let birds fly beneath the dome of the sky."
God's creative output as he filled his creation with living things was wildly diverse, like an artist who could not be contained. Indeed when we look at the scale of the universe we find such an array of created things as no one could have guessed but which all have an undeniable if mysterious beauty. Creation was by no means tame, no mere petting zoo, but a place where immense forces were in play, from the birth and death of stars, to the interactions of predators and pray on earth. There were both gentle, beautiful flowers as well as the fearsome lion and the tiger with his burning eye. All of this was in some way God expressing himself.
Then God said:
"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
Unlike the rest of the created order described in Genesis God discussed or consulted himself in the creation of humanity. For early steps he said "Let the earth", and "Let the water", but here he said, "Let us". And to what purpose? Because mankind alone, of the creatures on the earth were to be made in the image of the Trinity. We were to be made after the pattern of Word of God himself because the Word alone was perfectly and exhaustively the image of the Father.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation (see Colossians 1:15).
There is too much contained in this idea of "image" to even make a good start of describing it here. But it is nevertheless on the basis of this image that we find our true dignity as creatures, capable of rational thought, and able to choose or reject the good. We are designed to pursue likeness with God, not by seizing the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but by choosing freely to love, thus imitating our creator.
Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
the birds of the air, and the cattle,
and over all the wild animals
and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.
When we understand the reason why we were made we can also better understand our "dominion" over creation as one of stewardship. We have not been given charge of these good things to use them wastefully and selfishly. We are given use over them, but we are also and at the same time their caretakers. They can even be our food, but they are never meant to be collateral damage to our carelessness.
Since on the seventh day God was finished with the work he had been doing,
he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken.
God rested, not because he himself needed rest, but rather so that we must rest together with him and be renewed in relationship with him and one another. It is chiefly our refusal to come to God and rest that makes us bad stewards of creation, makes us fail to live up to the image in which we were made. When we choose our own pursuits over and against this gift of rest from God we risk upending everything else. It is then that our human traditions become dangerous to ourselves and others, as we continue to insist that they are for God's sake, but as we ourselves are no longer sure what that would entail.
You nullify the word of God
in favor of your tradition that you have handed on.
And you do many such things.
So let us learn to be the people God always intended us to be, made in his image, growing day by day in his likeness. Sunday is the special source of rest and renewal that causes this likeness to grow in us. It was the Sabbath that introduced the word "holy" in the Scriptures. And it is still by our celebration of the Lord's day that we receive the grace we need to grow in holiness ourselves.
What is man that you should be mindful of him,
or the son of man that you should care for him?
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