Scripture: Genesis 1; Isaiah 43:1-2; John 1:1-5
Christmas, an entire holiday around an origin story as told in three of the gospels. Mark dives right into the action of Jesus’ adult life and bypasses his birth. Matthew begins with a genealogy to anchor Christ’s origin story all the way back to genesis and then gives us the perspective of Joseph, a super fast birth, followed by the magi and Herod’s anger. Luke gives us the angel visiting Mary, Mary’s magnificat, the census making Mary and Joseph travel, no room, the manger, and the shepherds. John, well, John anchors us in God and, in no uncertain terms, places Christ as God even before the beginning of all things. Now, to some, it might feel unsettling that the gospels do not describe Christ’s birth in exactly the same way. But they are not meant to. Each gospel is a part of a greater whole. Each gospel was told for years before being written down and each was written down for different communities over the course of several decades. The gospels conveyed to their communities the parts of Christ’s birth they felt the people most needed to hear. The parts that gave their communities the most hope, grace, comfort, strength. And we, we get the benefit of having them all in one place. We get the pre-existent light shining in the darkness, and the wisemen, and Mary telling the angel, “here I am, servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.” These stories are not meant to be systematic, minute by minute transcripts of Christ’s first moments on earth. In fact, no origin story in scripture is meant to be a systematic, minute by minute transcript. Instead, origin stories offer us something deeper, something truer, something to which we can anchor our very existence.
As I said last week, it is helpful for us to think of The Bible not as one book but as a library of books. Books with different genres. Books written by different people for different communities over the course of, so many years. One type of story found through scripture is origin stories. Origin stories describe, well the beginning of something. Whether that is Jesus’ birth, the beginning of the church in Acts, Genesis 1, Adam and Eve, or the new beginning after the flood with Noah and the ark, origin stories are found in both the old and new testaments and encompass multiple sub-genres (poetry, prose, etc.). And it is very tempting, so tempting, in our modern world of neat categories and all the answers, it is tempting to put origin stories in a box and file them away in a specific category. But origin stories are more complicated than that, they are more multifaceted than any one box can contain. Are they about a point in time? Yes. Do they convey something deeper, something that transcends what any one moment can contain? Also. Yes.
Think about this. One of the most sacred and holy times I spend as a pastor, is when I meet with family members following the death of a loved one. If that loved one happens to have a living spouse or partner, I try to ask the story of how they met. And as they begin to tell the story, their faces sift through the layers of emotions and memories and years. They talk about the color of car he was driving when he pulled up beside her and her friend walking on the sidewalk and asked them to a dance with his friends. They talk about the color of dress she was wearing, or how she’d really said yes to the movie because she thought his friend was cute. Eventually they might get around to sharing an exact month or day but not always. Because the origin story of their love conveys something deeper, richer, and more transcendent than any one time or place, no matter how life-changing that one time or place was. It’s like how the information, the data, on a birth certificate or adoption paperwork cannot convey the feeling of holding your child or grandchild for the first time. It cannot tell us how long you had waited or the heartache and laughter you had gone through. That sheet of paper cannot tell us how the first place you went to, hours after your daughter was born, was church on a Sunday morning, exhausted and with a smile on your face. Origin stories convey something deeper and truer than any one date or one moment can contain. And the origin stories in scripture? They offer us the deepest truths about God’s nature and invite us to anchor ourselves in that nature.
Bereshit, bara Elohim, the immortal origin of origins. Translated as:
In the beginning, God created…
First this, God created…
When God began to create…
And for two chapters, only one of which we read, God creates. In chapter one we encounter the refrain, “and God saw that it was good” and when looking upon all of creation, “and God saw that it was very good.” In chapter 1, God makes humanity in God’s image and likeness serving as stewards and creators with God. In Genesis 2, God molds humanity from soil and fills that human with God’s very breath. Like the gospels conveying the birth of Christ, Genesis 1 and 2 convey different aspects of creation. And like the gospels, they are not a minute by minute transcript but convey a deeper truth about God’s nature. Throughout Genesis 1 and 2, throughout the beginning of all things, we encounter an active, intimate, and present God who gives off God’s very self to bring about creation. As Rachel Held Evans puts it in her book Inspired, “The origin stories of Scripture remind us we belong to a very large and very old family that has been walking with God from the beginning. Even when we falter and fall this God is in it for the long haul. We will not be abandoned.” Genesis 1 is not a birth certificate for creation but the origin story of God’s love for creation. A love defined by presence and goodness and care. As we sang in the lyrics of our opening song, “I can see Your heart in everything You’ve made Every burning star A signal fire of grace…”. A love reaffirmed over and over again, especially in Jesus’ birth who is Emmanuel, literally God with us. A love exemplified in Isaiah 43, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine. I will be with you.”
Now, am I going to stand here and pretend that I have all the answers and that mine or an author’s interpretation of scripture is the be all and end all? No. This library was inspired in its original writing and continues to inspire as we encounter it a fresh in our lives, bringing our fears and failures to the text, our hopes and dreams. But I will say, that when conceive of origin stories too narrowly, when we fall into the temptation to put those stories into a neat little box or category, we risk missing the deeper truth, the deeper beauty of what God is trying to tell us.
Origin stories were good news for the Israelites, for the early followers of Christ, and for us today. In the year 22, 1022, or 2022, origin stories tell us that we are loved, that we can have hope, that we can have trust, and that we are not alone. May we freshly engage with these ancient stories and may they bring new light and new life to you this week. Amen.
Rev. Stefanie Hayes