C is for
Creation
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| Spin Doctor |
Day 1
as in brand spanking new and all over again, the bursting
into something of nothing the world has seen before, not even in that time
before time when Eve and Adam walked tall and naked in their garden. That
something this wondrous, so (strictly speaking) fantastic is suddenly afoot
in the world gets signaled by the words that both Luke and John use to open
their Easter reports. "On the first day of the week..." they write. Who,
attuned to Scripture, will not think quickly of Genesis 1, especially when
John takes pains to add "...while it was still dark."
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Jn. 1:1), indeed the very God who, beholding the darkness that covered the face of the deep said "Let there be light" and--Yes!--"there was light" (Gen. 1:3).
Later the darkness swelled and billowed and thumped its chest. It does so still. It both entices and coerces our service. Then it swallows its servants. People hate it, they embrace it, they simul-taneously love and loathe it, they fear it, they try desperately to make their peace with it. In America we commonly lie about it. The lie serves, we foolishly think, to protect us from the horror at its heart, an excruciating paradox. Consider: the very darkness that lays waste to God's creation and snuffs its light does so at best by God's sufferance, at worst by God's command. Hannah knew this (or, if you will, the composer of Hannah's Song: "The Lord kills.... He brings down to Sheol...." 1 Sam. 2:6) Israel's prophets knew it too, as did the unchurched Lincoln (see the Second Inaugural Address). Lincoln's descendents, Christians at their forefront, rage shrilly against the very notion of it--and wind up missing the astonishing grace that meets the truth head on and actually does something about it.
Paradox against paradox: the Word made flesh really meant it when he screamed, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" This is the Light of the world sinking into the darkness that kills us all. At God's sufferance and by God's command the darkness killed him.
Then God addressed the darkness: "Let there be light" And Yes!--all over again--there was Light. But a new light, of a kind that Eve and Adam did not see, a Light inextinguishable that the darkness cannot overcome. It was evening that Easter and it was morning, the new first day. It still is. See below.
