Trinity
21
Gen
1:1-2:3
10/20/24
At
the end of September, Hurricane Helene hit Florida. It then continued north as a storm through
Georgia and the Carolinas, dropping a tremendous amount of rain. Especially in North Carolina, this water was
trapped and funneled by the mountainous terrain. Streams surged out of their banks and turned
into raging rivers. This torrent of water brought chaos as it swept away
buildings and even small towns. It
washed out roads and left destruction everywhere. At least 300 people were killed by the storm.
Then,
about two weeks later Hurricane Milton formed in the Gulf of Mexico. It grew to be a massively powerful storm – a
Category 5 hurricane – and moved toward Florida. Thankfully it weakened to a Category 3 as it
then passed through central Florida. But it flooded streets and left three
million people without power as it caused destruction.
In
a very short period of time, we have seen the disorder and chaos of
nature. We have seen its destructive
power as it takes life. In our Old
Testament lesson this morning we hear about God’s act of creation. We learn
that what we experience now is completely different from what God intended
because God created an ordered world that was very good.
Our
text is the first chapter of God’s Word.
We hear, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 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.”
God’s
first action is to make the “stuff” of creation. He creates from nothing and brings it into
existence. We learn that this initial
action resulted in something that was “without form and void.” It was disordered, and was a setting of
darkness as the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.
Then
God proceeded in his act of creation. He
brings order to what had been disorder.
And he does so by speaking.
The power of God’s word creates and brings life. God says, “Let there be light” as he
separates light from darkness. God makes the expanse and separates the
waters that are under the expanse from the waters that are above the
expanse. He creates dry land as he
separates the water from the land.
Then
God creates life for his creation. He
creates vegetation for the land. He makes
sea creatures and birds. He creates
livestock and creeping things to live on the land. Each time, God’s word brings forth the parts
of his creation.
And
next, God creates the crown of his creation. We hear in our text, “Then God
said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” and we
learn, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created
him; male and female he created them.”
God creates man in his own image.
He creates him to be like God.
Man is not God. But he is the only part of creation to be like God. Man knew God as God wants to be known and
lived perfectly according to his will.
God
created man as male and female. We learn
in the next chapter that God created Eve as the helper who perfectly
corresponded to Adam – the one whom Adam needed. God created man and woman in their difference
to be joined in sexual union as one flesh.
And God is clear in our text about what that sexual union is meant to
do. We hear, “And God said to
them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over
every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
In
our text as God makes things we repeatedly hear, “And God saw that it was
good.” Finally, when he has finished
creation by making man we hear, “And God saw everything that he had made, and
behold, it was very good.” God had
brought perfect order to his creation.
He had made man in his own image to live in fellowship with God. He had created man as male and female to live
in marriage. He had placed man as his
representative in the midst of creation.
Adam
and Eve lived in this perfect ordering as they shared in life with God, with
one another, and with the creation. They
did, until the devil caused them to question whether the ordering was in fact
good. God had told Adam that they showed
their worship toward God by not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. They demonstrated that God was God, and they were not, by obeying God’s
command about this tree.
But
the devil tempted Eve. God had said eating of the tree would lead to death. The devil replied, “You will not surely die. For
God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be
like God, knowing good and evil.” The
devil said they could be more if they just disobeyed God. So Eve ate of the tree, and then gave it to
Adam who also ate.
Adam
and Eve sinned. Sin entered into the
world through them and it brought disorder and chaos into creation. Creation is no longer the perfectly ordered
setting in which we live. Instead nature sees the disorder of hurricanes and
tornadoes, of earthquakes and tsunamis. It is no longer the setting that
naturally produces food for us, but instead requires the hard work of man –
work that is not always successful.
Sin
has brought disorder into our personal relationships. Husbands and wives get frustrated with each
other and speak angry words that they wish they could call back. Children disobey parents and parents feel
exasperated with children. Co-workers
deceive and gossip is passed around the office.
And
sin has brought disorder into our own lives.
We do not fear, love and trust in God above all things, but
instead have no difficulty finding other things to put before God and his Means
of Grace. We act in selfish ways and in
so doing hurt the very ones we claim to love.
We find ourselves ruled by impulses for things which we know to be
wrong.
And
in the end, this will lead to the ultimate example of disorder for us –
death. Sin brings death- it always
does. And death rends apart what God had
ordered as a unity. Death tears apart
body and soul – it undoes what God made us to be.
When
sin entered into creation, God did not abandon us. Instead, right from the start he promised a
Savior who would descend from Eve – a Savior who would defeat the devil. God made promises that this Savior would
descend from Abraham through Israel. And
in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son as he was conceived by the Holy
Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.
The
Son of God became man, without ceasing to be God. True God and true man, he is
the creator of the universe. True God
and true man, he is the descendant of Eve promised by God. Jesus Christ came as the second Adam in order
to provide the answer to sin. Where Adam
disobeyed God, Jesus obeyed the Father’s will by giving himself as the
sacrifice for sin on the cross.
St Paul wrote about this to the
Romans when he said, “Therefore,
as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of
righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the
one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one
man's obedience the many will be made righteous.” Through faith in Jesus Christ we are now
justified. We have been declared “not
guilty” by God, and that will be the verdict of the Last Day.
The final disorder of sin is
death. Christ died to win forgiveness
for us. He also passed through death in order to defeat it forever. On the third day, God raised Jesus from the
dead. Here too, he was the second
Adam. Paul told the Corinthians, “For
as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of
the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made
alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his
coming those who belong to Christ.”
Jesus Christ’s resurrection was the
beginning of the resurrection of the Last Day.
In Christ the new creation has arrived. Jesus has already now included
us in that new creation in Holy Baptism.
We hear in our text about how the Spirit of God hovered over the face of
the waters in the time when God created the world. Now the same Spirit has worked through water
to give us new life and make us a new creation in Christ. We have been born again of water and the
Spirit.
This means that now through the
leading of the Spirit we seek to live according to that ordering that God
established when he first made his creation.
We seek to live in God’s way because it is the way that is best for us,
and for those around us. So seek to
fear, love and trust in God above all things as you turn to him in prayer and
you receive his gifts of the Means of Grace during the week and especially on
Sunday.
Children and youth, obey your
parents, and look for ways to assist them at home. Parents take up your responsibility to raise
your children in the Christian faith by bringing them to the Divine Service and
Sunday school, and by having devotions with them at home.
Husbands, love your wife by putting
her needs ahead of your own, just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up
for her. Wives acknowledge the headship of your husband in marriage, and
support him. All Christians – and
especially youth and young adults: Follow God’s will that sexual intercourse is
to be shared only within marriage. Wait
until you are married to have sex so that you may know it as the blessing God
intends. And husbands and wives, see to
it that you fulfill the sexual needs of one another because you are married.
Help your neighbor to protect what
they have, and don’t take from them.
Defend your neighbor’s reputation and speak well of him or her, while
refusing to pass on gossip. As Paul told
the Philippians, “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but
in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Let
each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests
of others.”
God has forgiven you and made you a
new creation in Christ so that you can live in these ways. And he encourages us with the hope of what
awaits us and creation as a whole because of Jesus Christ. Paul told the Romans, “For I consider that
the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory
that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing
for the revealing of the sons of God.
For
the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of
him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free
from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the
children of God.”
When Jesus Christ returns, he will
renew creation to make it very good once again.
And he will raise and transform our bodies to be like his resurrection
body. Never again will we know of sin,
sickness, or death. Instead we will live
in that perfect ordering with God, one another, and creation that has been
intended for us since “In the beginning….
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