Lesson One
Lesson One
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
It’s remarkable to me that such a matter-of-fact statement as “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” makes no attempt to describe the genius of God’s masterwork with any poetic verve (can you imagine Shakespeare or Jane Austen starting off a story like this?). It feels as textbook as a page from some dusty, old encyclopedia, but nevertheless reverberates with divine incarnation, as if Heaven intentionally wove Himself into a thread of poor words, condensing His glory into our common grammar and syntax, so that we who are poor and common and of-the-earth can grasp Him. And isn’t that just like Him, though—just like Jesus? His form was too marred and unattractive and ordinary for us to admire, but His heart was unlike any other. And when the disciples looked at Him with eyes of faith, they saw reflecting in those dark, sorrow-filled, all-too-human pupils the Shekinah glory of Jehovah.
Friend, think of Genesis 1 as the opening act of God’s Self-revelation—the first breath of His remarkable incarnation. And remember: the glory isn’t in the words themselves, but in the heart that meets us through them.