20^th March 2012

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Sunday 11 March 2012

Lessons -- Genesis 1:26-2:1; Psalm 24; Colossians 1: 15-20; John 1:1-5,14

'Behold, it was very good.' (Genesis 1:31) 'And the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us.' (John 1:14) 'Christ is the image of the
invisible God, the first-born of creation [and] the first-born from
the dead.' (Col. 1:15,18)

From Genesis to Revelation the Bible is a hymn of praise. It is an affirmation of the goodness of God's creation and the love of God for strife-torn humanity and a joyful anticipation of a future when all good things shall come to fruition according to God's sovereign purposes.

We can be so pre-occupied with our own immediate concerns that it is easy to miss the grandeur of the biblical narrative and the audacity of its message. It draws us to the God who is unlike any other and invites us, in a spirit of hope, to participate in the world in a way that is unlike any other.

Consider what is said in Genesis 1. Forget the futile debates between fundamentalists and Darwinians over the scientific origins of the universe. What we have here, using the pre-scientific knowledge of the day, is a profound theological interpretation of the sovereign purposes of God for the whole creation.

The Hebrews were surrounded by tribal peoples who, believing that the world came into being as a result of conflict between the gods, devised sacred rituals to placate the gods of sun, moon, stars, rain, rocks et al and to ensure their ongoing fertility and wellbeing. This was a culture in which Fate and fear held sway. The earth was an unfriendly place. Bodies died and rotted. People yearned to free their souls from misery and tears.

Into this pool of fearful, introspective religion the explosive message of Genesis was dropped. It was dynamite -- destroying narrow, insular and world-denying nature-worship and clearing a space in which the God of all nations is to be worshipped and the earth and human existence is to be affirmed and enjoyed.

What we have in Genesis is truly astonishing -- not at all 'primitive':

* Incredibly, reflecting on God's steadfast love for his flawed,
suffering people, they held that, in contrast to tribal gods, the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was also the Creator and Redeemer of all.
The gods are impotent, the world is stripped of divinity and God's
earth is to be loved and explored. The world is not purposeless. It is
given order and shape within which to be responsible.

* The ascription of 'goodness' to creation is breathtaking. What an
extraordinary affirmation when life was so 'nasty, brutish and short'
(Hobbes). In the face of terrible suffering, evil and death, they did
not believe that God had created a flawed world but a world that was
'very good'. The fact that things go awry is due to the misuse and
abuse of human freedom (a subject for another day).

* Our creation as male and female in the image of God, and its fruition
in marriage (Genesis 2:24), is counter-cultural: an assault on pagan
fertility practices designed to placate the gods. Far from being an
outdated view, as is said in some circles today, marriage between a man
and a woman is a glorious affirmation of their bodily union and their
unity in raising children in the covenant. It is the very foundation of
community. Though sexual relations can go terribly wrong, there is
nothing inherently evil about life in the flesh. Behold sex is very
good!

God's glorious purposes for life in the flesh is emphasised throughout the Bible. In Christ, God takes flesh upon himself. As John puts it: 'The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a Father's only Son, full of grace and truth. (John1:14)' The proof of God's love for the earth is the incarnation of his Son.

However, from the earliest period there has been a strong tendency to reject the full humanity of the Son of God. Some are uneasy about identifying Jesus' body with the transcendent presence of God. Others regard his body merely as a shell that covers his divinity. They all reject faith in the incarnate, crucified and risen Christ. It is improper, even scandalous and blasphemous, to attribute flesh to such a spiritual and unearthly Being as God!

Yet, the testimony of Scripture is clear. Our physical, material, bodily world must not be written off in favour of more 'spiritual' things. Jesus is not a divine 'soul' who escapes his crucified body, but the Lord of life whose body is raised from the dead. We are not 'souls' who are created to seek salvation from the earth and freedom from our bodies. We are flesh-and-blood persons called to love the earth and our bodies as we await the completion of our lives according to God's good purpose for the cosmos.

The goodness of life in the flesh and the hope that awaits creation is magnificently expressed in the profound and exuberant 'Christ Hymn'
(Colossians 1:15-20). In expressing confidence at what God has done in Christ, Paul challenges spiritually-minded people in the Church (and the surrounding culture) who reject the idea that God's love for the world has become incarnate in Christ.

Specific details about these esoteric new-age beliefs need not bother us.
The essential point is that they denigrate the bodily revelation of God's love in Jesus and turn him into an Other-worldly Redeemer who has come to save us from our flesh-and-blood existence. According to them, Christ is the 'first-born spirit' -- neither fully divine nor fully human -- who gives spiritual knowledge to enable us to remove ourselves from the material world and our physical existence -- thus saving our souls from the unpleasantness of earthly attachments!

Such beliefs were attractive to people who, like those addressed by Genesis six centuries earlier, believed that their lives were controlled by pitiless Fate. But these beliefs were out of place in the Christian community where God's sovereign purposes for the entire universe, supremely embodied in Christ, were shown to be 'very good'. God is not to be confused with Fate and Jesus is not to be confused with gurus promising escape from the earth!

Against these false beliefs Paul emphasises the bodily nature of God's revelation in Christ. Briefly:

* Christ is the 'first-born of all creation' (v15ff). He is the image of
the invisible God, displaying God's good purposes for the world. He
embodies the humanity for which all have been created (Genesis 1 & 2).
'In him all things hold together' (v 17b). Our bodily life finds
purpose and fulfilment in him. He saves us from seeking salvation of
our souls!

* Christ reconciles all things 'in heaven and on earth' through his
crucified body (v20). He does not escape his body but gives himself
sacrificially to demonstrate God's love for -- not escape from -- the
world.

* Christ is the 'first-born from the dead' (v 18b). His bodily
resurrection is the sign of God's victory over evil and a splendid
re-affirmation of the goodness and enjoyment of bodily life and earthly
responsibilities. If Jesus' 'soul' had escaped his crucified body, then
the creation, the world and human existence would not have been
redeemed!

Christian hope therefore has nothing to do with 'saving our souls' or escaping the world. If it were, then we would not really believe in the ultimate goodness of God's creation. We might believe in the survival of our souls beyond death, but have no confidence that our earthly tasks and personal relationships have any lasting meaning or that disappointment,
tragedy and unfairness will be redressed.

That is why Paul invites us to believe that Jesus is the 'first born of creation' and the 'first born from the dead'. Despite our shocking failure to live fully human lives in the image of God -- as embodied in Christ -- God's good purpose for his creation and for everybody has not been thwarted. Indeed, in Christ we see the sign of the new humanity that
awaits us in the 'new heaven and new earth'.

Whenever this new reality takes place, it will be the joyous completion of earthly, bodily life in a way that is beyond our imagination but consistent with what has been disclosed already. Anything less would contradict the purposes of God who created us in his own image, declared the whole creation to be 'very good' and redeemed our broken image in Christ's life, death and resurrection. Anything less would strip us of
hope.

We are called to be a people of hope. May we join in these hymns of praise that echo from the beginning to the end of Scripture so that God may be glorified and we may be emboldened to live fully in the world as we await its glorious fulfilment in Christ.

---------------

Rev Dr Max Champion is minister in the St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is Chair of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.