Grace Lutheran Church

+ In Nomine Jesu +
The Rev. Evan Gaertner
Feast of Holy Trinity
Genesis 1:1-2:4
“By the Word”
May 18, 2008

In the beginning.

Those are the words that open up the Scriptures to us.

In the beginning.

With these words we are invited to find ourselves. Explorers and adventurers throughout the years have sailed the seas, climbed the highest mountains, and soared into the clouds with the goal of discovering the world. Where does your adventure begin? Where does your journey begin?

In the beginning.

God created.

Where does my life begin? I exist because God has made me. I can have all sorts of dreams and desires, but all of this exists because God began creating.

Where does your life begin?

Even while the earth was without form and void, and darkness covered everything. God existed. The spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Like a hen gathering her wings over her eggs preparing them for life, the Holy Spirit was present preparing us for life.

In the middle of this formless and void earth and darkness of the deep the Word of God breaks through.

God did not desire that formless and void darkness to remain. God does not desire emptiness. Your life, all life, was made for a purpose. God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Now by the power of sin we foolishly turn our lives away from God’s purpose and protective care to try to stand on our own. It is foolishness to try to live apart from the presence and purpose of God. Consider a chicken egg under the warmth of a hen’s wings. Would that chicken egg roll away from the protection of the hen and seek its own way in the world. Foolishness. That egg would not last away from the warmth of the hen and would never hatch. The egg would become just an empty shell.

Life cannot exist apart from the presence of God.

In the beginning.

When we try to live our lives apart from God we become just empty shells, unable to grow into what God has made us.

When entering Jerusalem, Jesus said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you kill the prophets and stone to death those sent to you! How often I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings!”

Because of the original sin of Adam we all are born sinful and in need of forgiveness. We all are born as empty shells unable to praise God and live. Christ has come though to gather us again into the warmth of the love of God. Christ on the cross with his arms outstretched reaches out to all the sinful and lost and erring souls. He says from the cross, “Father forgive them.” The Word of God that created in Genesis, calls for us to be restored. Into the empty, formless, sinfulness of the world that would place Jesus onto the cross, the Word breaks through and creates life again.

Your life as a Christian is found to begin in the book of Genesis and in the living reality of Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh.

Soli Deo Gloria