Links for today’s readings:
Read: Genesis 2 Listen: (3:42), Read: John 2 Listen: (3:02)
Scripture Focus: Genesis 2.7-8
7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.
Reflection: Cosmic and Earthy Creations
By John Tillman
The creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 sound different.
Genesis 1 is cosmic, ordered, rhythmic poetry. The Spirit hovers. The Word speaks. Photons, matter, and life forms burst into being ex nihilo, “out of nothing.” Day and night separate each act from the next in a chain of images, like framed paintings on a museum gallery’s wall, or colored panes in a stained glass window.
Genesis 2 is earthy, messy, intimate prose. The actions of creation are less ordered and formal. The Creator kneels in a grassless, soggy plain forming a human from the wet earth. He puts his mouth on the muddy shape and breathes into it, then wipes mud from his lips as Adam takes his first breath. God, the gardener, keeps digging in the dirt. He plants and cultivates trees that provide beauty and health, cuts rivers that supply water to distant lands, forms other living creatures out of the ground, and a co-laborer for Adam from his own flesh.
These two versions aren’t arguing with each other. The writers of scripture weren’t confused or ignorant. They didn’t forget what they just wrote. When you lay these two stories over each other, they fill in each other’s gaps.
Whether you need to be reminded of how grand, glorious, and powerful God is or how near, intimate, and tender he is, Genesis has you covered.
Our creator is both cosmic and earthy. He blows galaxies across the universe and he breathes into our lungs. He speaks to photons and whispers in our ears. He scatters stars in the sky and sows seeds in the dirt—and seeds in our hearts.
From its first pages, the Bible reminds us that the glorious God of Heaven muddied his knees and hands at our making. The God who created calculus and physics also created our emotions and feelings. We are also both cosmic and earthy creations. We need his cultivation.
In this new year, how is your garden? Do you need irrigation for dry soil? Do you need to diagnose diseased plants? Do you need to stop pests from nibbling your fruit? Or do you need to plow it all under and start ex nihilo? Let our garden-planting God guide you.
As we walk through the scripture with him, God will never stop cultivating our muddy, messy lives into the garden he always designed us to live in.
Image Note: The image used in today’s post is of the Butterfly Nebulae, located in the constellation of Scorpius.
Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Save me, O God, for the waters have risen up to my neck. — Psalm 69.1
– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.
Read The Bible With Us
The best time to join our two-year Bible reading plan is now. What will you hear from God this year?
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Read more: God In the Dark
God still says “let there be light” and causes the Morningstar to rise in our hearts.
