Happy New Year.
We say it with a sense of hope each time midnight rolls around on the 31st December.
Christmas is over for another year. The Hot Cross Buns are already our in stores. Too early to be thinking of the death of our Saviour.
And yet, Jesus offers us a new beginning when we invite Him into our hearts.
Bible reading plans start on New Years Day with Genesis Chapters 1 and 2. (and Luke Chapter 1. I invite you to take up your Bible and read them now.)
Genesis starts with the words we all know: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
Here is the beginning of time. The beginning of all things. Outside of this moment there has only ever been God almighty and eternal.
Now. This moment. Beginning.
In one commentary is the statement that "If anyone is in search of accurate information regarding the age of this earth, or its relation to the sun, moon, and stars, or regarding the order in which plants and animals have appeared upon it, he is referred to recent textbooks in astronomy, geology, and palaeontology. No one for a moment dreams of referring a serious student of these subjects to the Bible as a source of information. It is not the object of the writers of Scripture to impart physical instruction or to enlarge the bounds of scientific knowledge." (Expositor's Bible Commentary. Online.)
The suggestion here is that the account of Creation is "inaccurate." However, a careful reading of Scripture would clarify this is far from the case. Science has worked hard to remove God from the premise. A person's understanding of these things should be in terms of what is observed. In referring anyone to recent textbooks a student butts heads with evolution as the theory that describes beginnings. And yet there is a point past which evolution, and indeed the big bang theory cannot tread. What is beyond? What was before? Their answer is nothing. In nothing we have no purpose or meaning. Nothing has nothing to give. Nothing does not love. Nothing does not care. Nothing has no structure. Nothing is the absence of absolutely everything.
If we think of beginnings there is a point where we must take a step, perhaps even a leap of faith.
We either believe that something came from nothing, as we are expected to believe if we follow that path which leads us to the Big Bang, and still have the question unanswered, "How can nothing cause something to come into being?" Or we open ourselves to the possibility that God, Almighty God, Eternal God, is founder and creator of the universe, all that it is, all that is in it, all that we can see. And the idea of nothing fades to insignificance against something, someone who is vaster and more incomprehensible that we are able to imagine.
Why? For the simple reason that we are on the inside looking out. We are in that history that came into being "in the beginning." My point here is that we are not in a tussle between science and God, rather, we should see it as God before all. What we are looking at isn't scientific, indeed, it is outside our ability to conceptualise at all. What we are looking at is spiritual.
God is before everything else.
God is before beginning.
Each New Year we have that moment where we hope that this year just started is going to be better than the last one. That year just past, well, glad to see the end of it. Some rough stuff was going on there.
But what's to say that in the few moments after midnight the situation is any different? All that has changed is the date, and time as they say, marches on.
The key word here is hope. And this is what Genesis gives us. Right from the very beginning of the Bible we see a God who is Love creating, not because He needs to, but because He loves. What we have is a God who has given us situations and circumstances where we can find hope, not in what we do or who we are, but in Him, because of His love for us. Amen!
2 Corinthians 5:17 says "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"
If we read Genesis 1:1 and soak in how momentous the beginning of everything was, are we to think that the new creation which has come through our acceptance of Christ is any less amazing?
In looking to science for all the answers we miss the essence of meaning, as we have turned our backs to the One who created meaning and through whom meaning is realised.
We see beginnings as the start of a process. This is what is in our tool kit of understanding. We see the world in linear terms. Beginning, middle, end. The one constant is Christ, and our Father God who is in heaven and the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives. That which can be relied upon always has to be eternal and almighty.
And this gives us Hope to carry on regardless of the mess of life. I think we can all admit that life can and does get very messy.
Isaiah 43:18-19 reads: "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."
The Lord is with us in this moment, as He was in our past, so He will be tomorrow and after that. Each moment we live is because God has created it for us to live. What a thought!
And here is the clincher, we can live with the absolute Hope He gives us because He created everything out of Love for us. That's what I am trusting in. That's what gives everything meaning for me. His Love. There is Joy in that.
Happy New Year.
Amen.