CHAPTER 1
Repent
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.
Genesis 1:31
We have forgotten who we are.
Now the land is barren
And the waters are poisoned
And the air is polluted.
United Nations Environmental Sabbath Program
The Days of Creation
The story of Creation in Genesis thrills me. I love its majesty and intimacy. On the one hand, God called forth the entire creation through the spoken word. On the other hand, God surveyed it with delighted satisfaction and called it good. In simple but elegant poetry, Genesis 1:1-2:3 describes what the psalmist celebrated: "The earth is the LORD's and all that is in it, / the world, and those who live in it" (Psalm 24:1).
The word genesis, in Hebrew and Greek, means "beginnings." Beginnings refers not only to its placement in the Bible but the beginnings of heaven and earth itself. Even more important, Genesis describes the primary relationship between Creator and creation.
We can see that most especially in the first week of Creation. Over the course of six days, God created the entire naturalworld including humankind. It is a diverse but interdependent web of life.
On the first day, God created light and separated day from night. Interestingly, this was not the kind of light given off by sun, moon, or stars. They were not even created until several days later. This light is the very presence of God that makes all life possible. "God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good" (Genesis 1:3-4a).
On the second day, God separated the waters above from the waters below by creating the sky. "God said, 'Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters'" (Genesis 1:6). In the ancient Near East worldview, this sky (or dome or "firmament") was thought to be a solid element that held the rains back from flooding the earth. It was of particular importance because water was the ancient symbol of primeval chaos, the very enemy of order. Mastery over water belonged to the Divine. In fact, Genesis opens with the image of "the spirit of God ... hovering over the waters" (Genesis 1:2, New International Version). The King James Version emphasizes the immensity of this chaos by pointing out that "darkness was upon the face of the deep" (Genesis 1:2). If light equals life, then this chaos was a state deeply devoid of life or order; but God's creative speech tamed and transformed the chaos.
On the third day, God separated dry ground from the gathered seas. The land then produced seed-bearing plants and fruit-bearing trees. "God said, 'Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear'" (Genesis 1:9). Having separated the waters above from the waters below and containing the chaotic seas, God then called forth a wild profusion of trees, flowers, grasses, fruits, and vegetables. The dark, deep, watery chaos was transformed into a verdant scene bursting with self-replicating life. "And God saw that it was good" (Genesis 1:12).
On the fourth day, God sparkled the heavens with the sun, moon, and stars. Here is light that we can relate to. These luminaries not only give light and separate the day from the night, but they act as "signs to mark seasons and days and years" (Genesis 1:14, NIV). God's artistry was growing increasingly beautiful, increasingly complex. "And God saw that it was good" (Genesis 1:18).
On the fifth day, God caused the seas to swell and swim with oceanic life and the skies to fill with the winged songs of birds. "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky" (Genesis 1:20). The self-replicating nature of creation expanded. It was not just vegetation that reproduced, but fish and birds as well. This was a fertile world indeed, one that was meant to produce and reproduce—life abundant! "Be fruitful and multiply," God commanded the fish, "and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth" (Genesis 1:22); and "God saw that it was good" (Genesis 1:21), just as we do.
On the first part of the sixth day, God spoke and filled the land with animals. "'Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.' And it was so" (Genesis 1:24). Throughout these six days of Creation, God spoke into being a wondrous web of life. Out of chaos, God created light and dark, day and night, sky and earth, precipitation and flowing waters, seas and land, plants and trees, seeds and fruit, fish and birds, sun and moon and stars, daily and seasonal rhythms, and animals and their young. All of it was punctuated by the joyous refrain: "And God saw that it was good" (Genesis 1:12, 18, 21, 25).
However, the creation was not proclaimed "very good" until God created humans. In an act of divine delegation, God created male and female in God's own image. Then God blessed and directed them with these commands: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth" (Genesis 1:28). We are co-creators with God; we are to rule over this harmonious order for the good of all creation.
The fruitfulness of creation was complete and so was God's joy: "God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). One can imagine God's vibrant delight and satisfaction with this beauteous, harmonious, self-replicating creation.
Finally, on the seventh day, a number signifying wholeness and completion, God rested. Like an artist satisfied that a masterpiece is complete, God blessed and hallowed the day. All was well.
The Grief of God
Some five chapters later, however, the scene is radically different. God was in despair. Like a lover betrayed, the Creator had become disillusioned with the creation. It was not the trees or fish or sky causing problems, though; it was humanity. Adam and Eve had disobeyed God and eaten of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God cast them out of the garden of Eden with just the clothes on their backs. Later jealousy and murder entered the scene when Cain killed his brother Abel. Strife, ego, and pride were not far behind.
By Chapter 6 of Genesis, God is fed up. The earth was filled with violence, and every inclination of the human heart was evil. God was grieved to have made us at all! So with a pained heart, God made a drastic decision: to be done with humanity and, by default, with the rest of creation. Human beings are so intimately interconnected with the rest of creation that we cannot exist apart from each other. The health and wholeness of one depends upon the integrity of the other. Humans had sinned not only against God but against the creation. As a result, the creation itself was corrupted.
In a terrifying move, God set about unmaking what had been made and allowed the created order to revert to chaos. Water, God's opponent, was let loose. For forty days and forty nights, God caused it to rain. It was a non-stop, torrential deluge of water: a flood...
