"For God, the Incarnation cannot possibly have been an afterthought (in respect to creation and redemption) - he always thought of both... The witness of passages that deal with what is usually called the 'cosmic' rather than simply the 'time-bound' nature of Christ - Christ the rock that followed the Israelites in the wilderness, Christ seen as the Lamb slain from the very foundation of the world.
Jesus, then, is neither other than nor a reversal of what The Word does at all times throughout the fabric of creation".
Divine Complicity - Robert Farrar Capon.
From the moment we're told that the Lord 'walks' in the garden in the suburbs of Eden, presumably in continuing delight in His handiwork, we are introduced to a narrative which underwrites the entirety of the existence of all that is made.
Creation itself is displayed as beginning with forces which are untouchable in respect to any normative process of change to them. Void, formless chaos, darkness and vast unbound expanses of water are the very means God will 'settle' amongst and there begin to speak in such a fashion that they must yield their inherent resistant nature to His nurturing of them to bring an explosion of purposeful light - the initial forging of the heavens and the earth. The 'Word' literally becomes evidenced in what it makes appear and change into stars cascading in their billions - an initial fanfare to announce a greater glory to come.
'Below' those primal waters, our own world would have at that moment seemed very empty, devoid of any of the majesty that was to come, as the one who walked the depths of creation's foundations began to 'breathe' His word into it, but in that initial opening act, we evidence what will now arise - a clothing of a world with life that the excellence of God's greatest revelation may be made evident.
Life is 'seeded' in a fashion which underlines its entire dependance upon sources beyond itself to allow it to begin, grow and thrive - something we ourselves are meant to reflect - that we cannot remain whole unless this is the very centre of our being.
From the moment the second chapter of Genesis commences to unfold the intimate intent of this grand work, it is evident that there is a vital reciprocity between the one who forms and matures the new world through His direct inter-actions with this (notice the way in which He takes clay and forms man) and the race He brings about to 'subdue' this realm. This is shattered in the moment we decline such communion in favour for reliance wholly upon ourselves, but even as this living vision breaks and shatters, it becomes clear that we will not be left beyond help - the God who made us will remain amidst our tortuous decline into the murder of what is good, and raise us, like those elemental forces, to again know the blessing of His remarkable, saving work.
In his peek into a typical late evening meeting of the Inklings, Humphrey Carter allows us to listen-in on one of their conversations about the genuine 'magic' of stories - their seeming to be there, notes Lewis, as if they are just waiting to be written down. As the conversation unfolds and they begin to examine the undeniable gravitas of a good story, Tolkien notes the following about the threads in his own work:
"(in all my work), both old and new, the main concern are themes of fall, morality and what I term 'the machine'. The fall is the inevitable subject in any story about people; morality in that the consciousness of this (condition) effects anyone who has creative desires and aspirations that are left unsatisfied by the plain 'flatness' of purely biological life, and by the machine I mean the use of all external plans or devices (to a particular end...) powers corrupted by the motive of cruelly dominating, bullying the world and coercing wills". He also notes that genuine artistry conveys and is born from an inherent need of connection to something far greater than ourselves.(The Inklings).
Truth pierces the crippling drudgery of being us without all that comes from the majesty we taste in eternal truth and in our inmost, original longings - the hunger within our deepest desires which only God can fill.
We must live beyond the mundane, the utilitarian, the modernal, because we see, hear, breathe a reality that stings us every time we allow more than just a superficial connection to reality to shock and jolt us (which speaks volumes about how much of the present is given over to 'the machine' and not the eternity in our hearts). When we touch, taste and handle the unmistakeable nature of the real world, then we see clearly that the fingerprints of the Divine are everywhere (Psalm 19:1).
Which brings us to God, in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. As Christian theologian and pastor Chad Bird notes: "(in that other 'Eden'), the Lord causes a 'deep sleep' to fall upon Him - of death itself. From His wounded side... a new ishshah (Eve) is born, participating in the waters of baptism and the blood of the lamb (John 19:34). Like the first Eve, she has been made flesh and bone of Him, because of that shed blood".
The Lamb slain from the first has hung and suffered to birth us into eternal union. Let this be the source of all our joy and life.
No comments:
Post a Comment