2nd Sunday in Advent (December 5): In the beginning … God

Theme for week 2: The newness that comes to all creation in the redemption God has planned.
 
Prepare to Listen.  As you light the 1st and 2nd purple candles, let these words still your heart and mind: In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  (John 1:4)
 
Prayerfully Read Genesis 1:1-2
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
 
Prayerfully Wonder
Since the Bible is about God, it would be reasonable to expect the writer to begin it with a description of God or offer proof for God’s existence.  But it’s not there; just an abrupt one-liner: “In the beginning… God.”  And then the passage launches into what God does—creates (vv3ff).
 
This first creation story uses the Hebrew term Elohim, for God.  It’s a generic term, not a personal name, used by all religions.  Elohim suggests that the God of the Bible is an inclusive God, belonging to no one group.  God is bigger and more inclusive than we can imagine.  We neither possess nor control God.  There’s no description because God isn’t an abstract subject we can dissect and examine bit by bit.  God is beyond description, known only by what God does.
 
When we keep reading the chapter, we learn that this God who creates is relational and speaks.  God spoke creation into being and remains in relationship with what was created.  Knowing God, therefore, is a relational activity, requiring our whole being, not merely our minds.  We only truly know God by loving God.  As the anonymous 14th century author of The Cloud of Unknowing maintained, “[God] whom neither [humans] nor angels can grasp by knowledge [meaning intellectual pursuit] can be embraced by love.”  We humans were created to love, says The Cloud, “and everything else was created to make love possible.”
 
Prayerfully Reflect
What steps can you take to grow in relational knowledge of God?
 
Respond to Jesus
God our Creator, you were there in the beginning, bringing the world into being.  You created us to live in loving relationship with you.  Help me keep growing deeper in love with you.  Amen.
 
Live obediently.  Love God and God’s creation.