Sermon 32: In The Beginning . . . Wow!

The Bible opens with ten simple words. “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” This is the most powerful sentence ever written, magical in its simplicity, and will never be topped as an introductory statement. It informs us of some of the most important things we will ever need to know.

First, God has clearly answered the question of “Who made all this?”. God doesn’t intend for us to do a lot of wondering about our existence. He lets us know that, before the start of any existence, there was God. We are told that He is the Creator, Our Father. We also know right off the bat that there is an all-mightiness in control of things. That we are not in the midst of randomness and chaos. So, why do we still sometimes feel that the world is spinning out of control? It is because we are in the midst of a power we will never be able to fully comprehend. This sentence tells us so. As the Maker, God is obviously much more than we are. Therefore, we can hardly trust our human perception to make any sense of the universe. Because we are in the hands of God, this sentence means that we should trust God and have faith in His reason for starting it all. God’s complete understanding of His own plan naturally leads us to believe that His motives and purposes do not need to be questioned.

This forceful opening line also mentions heaven and earth, a big clue as to how important they are. God begins his task by creating two distinct entities or planes of existence. Heaven is ascribed the greater importance as it is listed first, but as the Bible continues, no more detail is given regarding what God created in Heaven, only how He populated the earth, its skies, its oceans and its creatures. This is deliberate. The Bible is a guide for explaining the part where we are now, the earth. We can infer from this that heaven comes next. We can further be led to believe that existence in heaven will be in contrast with existence on earth. Earth a struggle, Heaven a breeze. How can we leap to that conclusion? It is proven by what we now understand to be the dichotomy of life, the dark and the light, the good and the evil, the yin and the yang, point and counterpoint. Can’t have one without the opposite. We experience this on a daily basis as we make our choices at forks in the road and as we battle between the rational and reckless sides of our natures. Science already knows that we have two distinct sides of our brain, the logical and creative sides. In studies on aging, older people have been shown to have a greater satisfaction with life and it is because over the years, use of both sides led to a harmony between the hemispheres, letting decisions be made with the heart and the head, not one absolutely. This is proof that balance is the key to peace and contentment, not trying to achieve the perfect.

Only ten little words, and yet they are quite a mouthful. In fact, this sentence tells us what we’ve always wanted to know. The answer to it all. Even the words have power, it is why the Bible has such staying power. This sentence will move you, will call forth emotions greater than an evocative phrase of a poem or a song is building to its crescendo can. It is because opening the Bible and reading this first sentence can actually make you feel stirrings of faith. We can believe that it is the truth and that it is truly a message from God.



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