We often like to imagine that we control the passage of time. We set our clocks, mark our calendars, turn off our blaring alarms…
We carry this same imagination over to the Bible often too.
In Genesis, it’s likewise similarly easy to imagine that after God rested on the 7th day, that Creation was finished.
How silly of us.
Because Creation didn’t end on the 6th day. We are in a great working of God and Jesus – a constant work which we are all in…
Isaiah 43:16-21
Thus says the Lord,
hwho makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters,
17 who ibrings forth chariot and horse,
army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
jthey are extinguished, kquenched like a wick:
18 l“Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
19 mBehold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
nI will make a way in the wilderness
oand rivers in the desert.
20 The wild beasts will honor me,
pthe jackals and the ostriches,
qfor I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
21 the people whom I formed for myself
rthat they might declare my praise.
The theme persists! ‘Behold, I am doing a new thing,’ speaks the prophet. We hear this same similar refrain again and again throughout the Bible. From beginning to end, God is making a new thing. We’re not separate from this continuing Making.
Children grow up.
People mature (hopefully).
We can marry and transform again.
Body, Mind, Soul, we grow. We are not what we once were, yet we also still carry something unmistakably ‘US’ as we grow. Does the acorn know the tree? But God knows both intimately. How much more so each of us, then?
Jesus, through John, continues this same assurance all the way into Revelation too:
In Revelation 21…
Then I saw ya new heaven and a new earth, for zthe first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw athe holy city, bnew Jerusalem, ccoming down out of heaven from God, dprepared eas a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, fthe dwelling place1 of God is with man. He will gdwell with them, and they will be his people,2 and God himself will be with them as their God.3 4 hHe will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and ideath shall be no more, jneither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
5 And khe who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I lam making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for mthese words are trustworthy and true.” 6 And he said to me, n“It is done! oI am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. pTo the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. 7 qThe one who conquers will have this heritage, and rI will be his God and she will be my son.
Creation didn’t end on the 6th day. It continues on. And we, like the acorns, can we even begin to imagine what the trees will be like one day?
Behold! The theme persists.
Behold! He is making all things new.
And that is a wonderful thing.
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