“Hi Tom! Thanks for the doughnuts yesterday! We are praying for you and Helen for good health and renewed strength.” Pastor Olaf

Genesis 1:1-5, John 1:1-5 “Creation”

“Creation,” where would we be today without it? Yet, we do not really consider too much the fact that the Holy Scriptures tells us that we are created from a holy God up in heaven. We tend to go from day to day just living our lives not thinking that we are part of this incredible thing called God’s Creation. Maybe if God handed out membership cards like Costco does, we might better appreciate what we are a part of.

I mention all this because in the Jewish Faith out of which Christ himself came, the idea of being part of the Creation of God is never really lost. To this day, the most holy thing you can do is imitate God in God’s most incredible feat and be a creator yourself. If you can create out of nothing something that is godly and beautiful, that is being most godlike yourself. I believe that is a wonderful concept.

Here is how that plays out in a very real sense: Creation never stopped. According to the verb tenses in Hebrew that we see in Genesis, that is a very true statement. It was “on-going” in the grammatical tense known as the “imperfect” back then, and it still continues today. God continues to create. When we have children, we say that we “pro-create.” This is a marvelous understanding that we are in fact continuing the Creation of God. That is a beautiful and powerful understanding, no?!

This is something that we try to get across to the youth: You are not “just an accident.” You are a child of God. You are part of God’s creative grace. How you are remembered in this world will be measured by what you yourself create.

I have to be careful here, of course, because this is not just about procreation. My uncle Olaf died last year. He was married, but his wife could not have children. But, he will always be remembered, and you can check Wikipedia on this, for having been the chief archeologist called into excavate, catalog, and rebuild an ancient Roman boat that was found on the Rhine River. Later a museum was built around that very boat, “The Antique Seafaring Museum.” His book on the subject stands today as the historical-critical work on Roman ships. He is certainly remembered for what he created in his life. And, what of my aunt who also could not have children? Well, she is the world’s foremost authority on Etruscan ceramics and even has a hall at the British Museum in London that she put together. God gave them the abilities to create in other ways.

Just as an aside: Wolgang Amadeus Mozart is remembered for his incredible godly gift of music. Did you know he had children? His son Franz was also a musician? He took lessons from Salieri, believe it or not! He ended up giving piano lessons in Lemberg (which is today Lviv, Ukraine.) So, we remember Mozart for his music, not his progeny!

Queen Liliuokalani, the last regent of Hawaii, never had children! She was, however, the choirmaster at Kawaiahao Church in Honolulu and wrote hymns, one of which we sang right before the sermon! So, yes, she created for God. Besides that, she hanai’d three children as well. God be praised! Adoption is also creative work! So, if you have fostered, adopted, or hanai’d; you have also helped to raise one of God’s children! That makes you a saint just like Mary the mother of Jesus who raised God’s Son.

I want you all to think about your lives right now and ask that very sincere question, “What am I creating?” “Is it godly?” Taking a bite from Jared’s sermon last week: “Am I building something eternal?” “Is this God’s ongoing creative power coming through my life right now?” I want you to claim it now: “This thing that I am doing now will last forever!” “It is going to last in this world and in the next!”

Over Christmas I visited a friend who was in ICU–not a member of our church at all. She was alert and happy to see me at the time. We talked about her diagnosis and then we prayed together for her healing. The next time I went to the hospital to see her, she had already been released (which was quite a miracle actually). Now get this, today she does not remember the ER at all. She does not remember the doctors or the nurses. She does not remember anyone else visiting her. She only remembers my visiting, praying for her healing, and feeling that she would be healed and be able to go home. That is the power of God’s Word and God’s creative healing in someone’s life.

Your prayer and healing touch can be an eternal moment that will be remembered!

Shifting gears a little bit now, I want to address a question since the beginning of time: Was Jesus there at the time of the original Creation? The text from John that was read today says that he was. If you have ever been to the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican and look up at Michelangelo’s depiction of the Creation, you can see Jesus is there right behind God who has His finger on Adam, giving him the spark of life. Around the scene of the Creation in the Sistine Chapel are depictions of the Apocalypse, the Resurrection, the coming Kingdom of God as well. Michelangelo in his work allows us to see something that actually stands out in the New Testament if you read the whole thing all at once–which we generally do not do. That is, Our redemption and salvation are part of God’s Creation that is ongoing. Five hundred years ago (1508 AD) Michelangelo gave us a visual to all of God’s handiwork!

Let us quickly jump up to Titus 1:2. Here Saint Paul is reassuring his coworker in ministry of the eternal nature of his ministry and that of Jesus. “In the hope of eternal life which God, who never lies, promised before the ages.” God’s redemptive grace for humanity was there from the very beginning. Yes, we sinned and were kicked out of paradise because of the wiles of Satan, but God’s redemption was set in motion at that moment too. God’s creation continued in and through the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.

Since we are in the book of Titus, and so close to this other really cool text, I thought we should just reinforce my last point that I made about progeny. In verse 4, we read “to Titus my true child in common faith.” Titus is not the only one in the Bible who is called “child” by Saint Paul; Timothy also gains that stature. Then, we have to assume that Titus and Timothy would have also gained “children of faith.”

Every time we have Father’s Day here in the church, we like to sing that old standard “Faith of our Fathers.” Actually we have sung it on Mother’s Day too. We will just switch the word “father” for “mother.” Do you have a faith child in your life? Someone you are trying to bring up in the faith? That is great! You are creating faith in another person!

So, yes, Jesus was there at the time of Creation. God’s redemptive love was there from the time before time began. In Genesis we see that the first thing that God does is create “light.” Last week we read in John 9:5 “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Jesus is telling that to his disciples.

As many of you know, I was born blind in one eye. When I was quite young, I went through corrective surgery that was not fully successful. The muscle was reattached to my right eye, so that it looks to others somewhat normal. After the surgery, I had patches on both eyes for some time. I learned to live my life as a blind boy. I could actually go to the fridge and make myself a bologna sandwich without vision.

With the eye patches over my eyes, I could still just make out whether it was night or daytime–just barely enough light leaked through. “Now I see through a glass dimly,” as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12! I need to relate this back to the light of creation. It is great that God created light. It is even greater that we can see because of the light and that we can see the light of eternal life in the person of Jesus Christ.

While I was still in the hospital my mother and father gave me a little battery powered dump truck. I could hear the motor.I could feel the wheels moving over the blanket. But, after the patches came off my eyes and I could see the orange truck with the yellow dumper on the back! It was the most beautiful thing I could have ever imagined.

My point is this, when God created the light, it was so we could see God’s creation. When Jesus came down to us, it was so we could see God, “I am the light of life!” says Jesus. And, the darkness does not overcome it. That is the last line of the scripture.

Amen.