A New Genesis

It was inevitable...that in the garden I should begin to ask myself what lay behind all this beauty.  When guests were gone and I had the flowers to myself, I was so happy that I wondered why at the same time I was haunted by a sense of emptiness.  It was as though I wanted to thank somebody, but had nobody to thank; which is another way of saying that I felt the need for worship.

--Beverly Nichols

From the beginning of time, mankind has felt the need to worship, to thank Someone for the gifts of the earth-- and unfortunately, to control, or to ensure, that the gifts would continue.  All we can do as creatures is to receive; despite our inclination to 'be as gods,' we really cannot control the gifts that come to us freely and without price.

We have always known the truth, but we have not always known the God of heaven and earth.  Early man invented sacrifice as a form of worship, as a way to thank and please the gods.  Mankind has always wanted an open door, a form of communication and exchange between heaven and earth.  Not satisfied with sacrifices of grain and wine and bulls and sheep, they began to offer their sons and daughters to the Most High.  What more had we to give than the fruit of our womb, than the most precious possession we had?  We offer back to the Creator the gifts He has given to us.

Early mythologies always incorporated the idea of "father" and "mother" in the generation of the gifts of sea, sky, and land.  The Creator God, whatever form he took, was "Father," who poured out life and generation to the womb of the earth, the "mother," who received the seed of Life within herself and nurtured it, bringing forth "sons and daughters," or fruitfulness, abundance.  The gift of the earth is the result of the marriage or union of spirit and flesh.

In the womb of the virgin, finally, as C.S.Lewis puts it, "myth becomes fact."  The seed of the Creator enters into an "earth/flesh" which fully receives all that God wants to pour out on mankind.  Whereas the Word -- "Light: Be!" -- brought forth all that exists in Genesis, with the Spirit of God hovering over the waters, so now, the Light of the World that brings light and truth to the heart of man, enters the womb of the virgin, as the Spirit hovers over her.  What mankind has always sensed, believed, and lived in some way on the physical plane now becomes reality on the spiritual, as well as the physical, plane. 

The first few lines of John's Gospel provide truth for a lifetime of reflection.  They can never be read enough; their truth can never be exhausted.  Even before he became a Christian, C.S. Lewis recognized the power and the truth of the Gospels:

This is the marriage of heaven and earth: Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact: claiming not only our love and obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher.

Lewis goes on to call God "the Master Story-teller," combining fact with the best of human art.  John's Gospel finally takes the realities described in the first three Gospels and sees the meaning, the truth behind the physical events:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...

through him all things were made; without him [the Word] nothing was made that has been made.

In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it....the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God -- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

Finally, what all mythologies, religions, and vague desires of mankind has tended toward has become reality.  There is finally a true and real union between God and man, a loving communion, a marriage of the divine and the human.  It is possible; it has been done; it exists in Jesus Christ, and from the fullness of his grace, we have all received one blessing after another.  In Him, the first creation, destroyed and marred by man's greed, darkness, and blindness, has risen to a new and greater form of life that cannot be destroyed.

As the Spirit of God hovered over the waters of chaos and darkness at the first creation, as the Spirit hovered over the empty womb of the virgin Mary, so too He hovers today over us, over our chaos and darkness, waiting, waiting, for our openness, for our receptivity to the Divine Energy.  We have all felt the need to "thank Someone," to worship, to receive spiritual Light and Life, to become children of God, born not of a father's will, but of the divine seed. 

It has happened; it happens now!  Let a new heavens and earth spring up in us.  Let us receive in our own empty flesh the Word of God, Who is Christ Jesus, born in us of the Holy Spirit.  Let Him come to a new birth in our flesh; let us be 'married' to God and produce children for Him.  It begins in us not with an idea or an argument, but only with worship, with surrender, with openness to the Life God Himself has chosen to pour out in everyone who will receive it. He will not do it alone, but only with our cooperation.

Let the earth (our flesh, which has become dark and chaotic) receive the Word of God and become new again.  Let there be Light!  Come, Lord Jesus and make of us a new creation, a new Genesis!