Reflection: God saw that it was very good, by Joy Kingsbury-Aitken, 1 September 2024, Planet Earth Sunday
The first chapter of Genesis is neither history nor science and yet it is profoundly true. It is pre-scientific poetry, acknowledging God as the creator of all that is. Genesis doesn’t start with the “big bang” when the universe came into being. Rather Genesis starts with earth already existing but completely covered in water, with thick toxic clouds formed by immense volcanic eruptions blocking the light of the sun from reaching the surface. “The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”[1] How long earth remained like this the Bible does not say. Thus Genesis doesn’t take us back 13.7 billion years when the universe came into existence, nor even 4.5 billion years when the earth was formed and began orbiting its nearest star. It takes us to a time when a multitude of plant and animal species came into existence on earth over a relatively short time period.
The author of Genesis chapter 1 is, of course, unaware of the fossil record that tells us that in the Cambrian period that began about 530 million years ago, there was in evolutionary terms a sudden explosion of diverse lifeforms, crustaceans and invertebrates, which have a similar construction to animals existing today and which are believed to be their ancestors. Rather the author of Genesis chapter 1 thought that the species existing in his own time were the living things that God created in the beginning. This has led to the young earth creationism of those Christians and Jews who, basing their cosmology on Genesis chapter 1, believe that the earth and its flora and fauna along with humans came into being a mere 10,000 years or so ago, in spite of the earth’s rocks telling us a different story.
To understand Genesis chapter 1 we need to appreciate the cosmology of the author. The Old Testament was written by people who believed the earth was a disc on which there was humps and hollows (hills and valleys). The disc was edged with mountains, and had been immersed in water below and above. To keep the waters above from drowning the earth God placed a dome shaped vault over the earth, and giant pillars under it to hold up the earth so that it wouldn’t sink into the waters below, or tip over. “The pillars of the earth are the LORD’s and on them he has set the world,”[2] says Hannah, and the psalmist reports God as saying, “When the earth totters, with all its inhabitants, it is I who keep its pillars steady.”[3] The underside of the dome was the sky across which the sun, moon and stars moved. There were windows in the dome that when opened allowed water to fall as rain to the earth. The water below the earth was accessible through springs and wells. Illustrating this concept is the way Genesis describes the cause of the Noachian flood: “All the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.”[4]
It seems that all cultures have creation myths. The creation story that we are most familiar with is that of “Ranginui (the sky) and Papatūānuku (the earth) [who] were joined together, and their children were born between them in darkness. The children decided to separate their parents, to allow light to come into the world. After this, the children became gods of various parts of the natural world. For example, Tāne became the god of the forests and Tangaroa the god of the sea.”[5] The opening chapter of the Bible, unlike the second chapter, does not appear to belong to the genre of creation mythology, however. Rather the author seems to be attempting to provide a logical explanation of how God created life on earth, in accordance, of course, with the understanding of the earth that he and his contemporaries held.
Light is essential for life, as the Maori creation tradition acknowledges, so the first thing that God is recorded doing in the Bible is to say, “Let there be light.” Light and darkness are separated and called day and night respectively. It is not surprising that the author puts the creation of light on the first day, but it is surprising that the earth’s source of light, the sun, doesn’t put in an appearance until the fourth day. To attempt to solve this conundrum, I have found it helpful to turn to today’s gospel passage. The first chapter of John is a commentary on the first chapter of Genesis from the perspective of the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. To emphasize this point, John starts his gospel with the words used to start Genesis: “In the beginning…” God’s first act of creation in Genesis is to speak light into being and to separate light from darkness. At the beginning of John’s gospel we are told that in the Word (who was God) was life and that life was the light of all people. Then John tells us that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” Throughout John’s gospel, light is a metaphor for Jesus. On one occasion Jesus says to the Pharisees, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life,”[6] and on another occasion he tells the people, “I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in darkness.”[7] So reading Genesis through the lens of John, I’m suggesting that the light that God calls forth on the first day of creation was the life-force of the Word through whom all things subsequently come into being and by whom all things continue to be. I am not heretically saying that God created that life-force on the first day of creation, but that the Word, the divine speaker, began utilising the stupendous power inherent to God[8] to bring physical life into existence.
The first three days of creation are days of separating things. During the first day light and darkness are separated. During the second day, the waters above the dome covering the earth are separated from the waters beneath the disc which is the earth. On the third day the waters on the surface of the earth are separated from the dry land. Once there is dry land then vegetation can grow upon it, so plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit containing seed are brought into being. From this point on there is an emphasis on the fertility of creation, and at the end of each day God observes what has been achieved and pronounces it good.
The fourth day brings us to the creation of the lights in the sky, but rather than begin with their purpose to illuminate the earth, their role as marking the passing of time is noted. “Let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years,” says God. Here the reference is not just to the yearly cycle of spring, summer, autumn and winter, but to the new moons that marked the beginning of each month in the Hebrew calendar and the full moons that marked the beginning of the major festivals of Passover in the spring and Booths in the autumn. With the setting of the sun and the appearance of the first stars a new day begins, hence the refrain of “there was evening and there was morning.” According to the Hebrew way of thinking, each day begins in darkness and dawn comes with the morning. This is probably a good metaphor for life in general. When experiencing the darkness of doubt and uncertainty, we are wise to patiently wait for Jesus, the sun of righteousness to rise with healing in his wings,[9] who restores us to a state of faith and clarity.
On the fifth day, the waters on the earth were populated with swarms of living creatures and the skies filled with birds, and on the next day a great variety of land animals were created. What is notable about days five and six is the abundance of wild life that is brought into existence and of course the command that each of these species multiply. We know that earth did once teem with an immense number of lifeforms until human activity reduced animal populations and caused whole species to die out. New Zealand was the last major land mass to be settled by humans and thus the last during the Anthropocene epoch to experience extinction events. Over the last 750 years since the Māori arrived the species that have become extinct include one bat, at least fifty-one bird species, three lizards, one freshwater fish, four plant species, and a number of invertebrates. The rate of extinctions greatly accelerated with the arrival of Europeans around 200 years ago, with their pests and their proclivity for destroying habitats by clear-felling forests and draining wetlands.
As I said at the beginning of this reflection, the first chapter of Genesis is neither history nor science but it is profoundly true. Planet Earth is not ours to destroy. We only have the use of its resources for the brief span of our lifetimes, and we never have the right to abuse it. However God brought life into being – by evolution or fiat or possibly a combination of the two (we remember Darwin titled his seminal work Origin of Species not Origin of Life) – what God made God owns, we don’t. In adding the Season of Creation in September to the liturgical calendar, the churches (Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant) are calling upon Christians everywhere to acknowledge our part collectively and individually in the destructive and often needless exploitation of the earth and as a result to change our lifestyles to become more Earth friendly. Today we celebrate Planet Earth Sunday by giving God thanks for the wonderful world in which we live and by committing ourselves to taking much better care of it; as we pray for the restoration of what God pronounced to be “very good”. Amen.
[1] Genesis 1:2
[2] 1 Samuel 2:8
[3] Psalm 75:3
[4] Genesis 1:7
[5] https://teara.govt.nz/en/maori-creation-traditions
[6] John 8:12
[7] John 12:46
[8] Revelation 21:22-23
[9] Malachi 4:2