Word for Word 2/9/22

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” (John 1:1-3)

Some years ago, on a family vacation to Chicago, we visited the Field Museum of National History. Most captivating for me during our visit was a detailed, special exhibit on the Big Bang Theory, science’s leading hypothesis for how the universe began.

Simply put, the Big Bang Theory suggests that the universe as we know it started at an infinitely hot, dense, single point that exploded in a nanosecond some 13.8 billion years ago. That enormous blast created all the chemical elements now composing the universe. The conflagration also triggered a warp-speed cosmic expansion that continues today.

Based on that theory, some scientists are only too happy to affirm that the biblical statement “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” is singularly an article of faith and certainly not something that can be demonstrated as fact. That assertion fuels the perennial science vs. religion debate over how we and our world came to be.

That debate, I believe, is among the red herrings that unnecessarily and unhelpfully force either-or choices and needlessly split Christians into separate camps: Either God created the universe in six days exactly as the Bible says, or the Big Bang created the universe, and God had nothing to do with it.

But who’s or what’s to say that it cannot be both!

I’ve never taken as fact the Genesis story of God creating the cosmos in six earthly days. For starters, the concept of “days” is a human convention that didn’t exist “in the beginning.” Why would God be working on human timeframes when an eternal God has no need of such measures?

Further, Genesis itself offers two different versions of the Creation story. Genesis 1 speaks in terms of six days, but Genesis 2 proclaims God creating the universe with no concrete reference to human time.

What’s a believer to do? Perhaps stop thinking in terms of either-or and start thinking in terms of both-and, which is what I did that afternoon at Chicago’s Field Museum. Here’s my thinking:

If God were to set about creating everything, what better way for a mighty, all-powerful God to set things in creative motion than with a tremendous explosion that’s still ongoing at the edges of the universe. In my both-and understanding of Creation, God lit the fuse that set off the Big Bang, and we’re still feeling the shockwaves.

It’s both a Big God and a Big Bang!

NASA recently launched the Webb Space Telescope, the largest, most powerful such spyglass ever constructed. It will peer into the deepest reaches of space and probe places where stars and galaxies first formed.

As you might know, the farther out you look with a telescope, the farther back you look in time. Light travels around 186,000 miles per second or just shy of about six trillion miles a year. That’s incredibly fast, but the universe is very big. Even at the breakneck speed of light, it takes a given beam of light a long, long time to get here.

Think of it this way: If on a clear night you looked up at the stars, the light you’d see is “old” light - ancient beams that have traveled millions of years to reach Earth. Even light from our own sun takes about eight minutes to traverse the 93 million miles between the Earth and the sun. So, with the Webb, the farther it sees, the older the light it will catch.

Some say that eventually we might invent a telescope so powerful as to see all the way back to the Big Bang itself. Even if such a feat of time travel were possible, the Old Testament Genesis verse “In the beginning, God” would be neither validated nor disproved. For no matter how far back a telescope sees, it will never snap a photo of God’s creating breath blowing out the match with which God lit the Big Bang!

Some astronomers and astrophysicists believe that the only worthwhile knowledge is what science can prove, and they claim that their inability to see God out there proves God does not exist. But more balanced scientists admit there are many truths we do know without scientific proof. Yet, it doesn’t matter what any of them thinks, because we Christians know that to say “In the beginning, God” is a matter of faith that reflects truth, even if the Genesis stories don’t entirely represent fact.

What a key piece of our faith that is! Because contained in that little statement “In the beginning” is a solid cornerstone of belief: Namely, that God has something to do with everything. God somehow or other created the highest and farthest points you can imagine as well as the lowest and closest points - and absolutely everything in between.

Maybe someday, when you and I abide forever in heaven, God will deign to provide us with the details and particulars of Creation. Until then, by faith, we nevertheless believe God created it all - somehow or other - on a scale so vast as to be beyond human comprehension. Indeed, God made it all, and God is redeeming it all, too - through Christ, the living Word that John’s Gospel declares right there with God in the beginning.

Thanks be to God!

Rev. Dr. Grant M. VanderVelden is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Waukon. More of his pastoral reflection is available at FirstPresWaukon.com/sermons/.

Rev. Grant VanderVelden
First Presbyterian Church
Waukon