Friday, March 7, 2008

For Sunday, March 9 - A Vision of Re-Creation



Romans 8:6-11 (Ezekiel 37:1-14 too)
One of the themes God seems to be hammering away at for me is this concept of recreation. Not as in gas guzzling "recreational vehicle," but as in RE-Creation. Something being re created. (Which by the way, is the idea behind the concept of recreation...times of recreation are supposed to re-create us). The idea that's been bouncing around in my cranium is that God is constantly performing a do-over of creation. If it is true that humanity, and indeed the entire cosmos, went terrible wrong just after being created (initially perfect and good) - as the result of humankind's rebellion from God, then the work of God involves re-creating everything as it was meant to be. That's what Romans 8 says,
The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
The Bible stories are, among other things, about returning creation to the way the world was meant to be before the Fall. Freedom, forgiveness, redemption, grace - all of these are about God creating all over again. Resurrection is re-creation.
So when God, in Ezekiel 37, gives this tremendous vision of the Valley of Dry Bones growing new tendons and new flesh and rising up as a vast army, it isn't just about those bones becoming the living dead. It's about re-creation of Israel, and of humanity.
The question then becomes, how is God creating all over again today? What is he re-creating? How are you and I involved? We're very in tune to the "groaning" of the fallen creation, but how in tune are we to the birth of new things? To our part in this birth through the power of Jesus' resurrection? Check out this week's question to the right, above, and chime in with your thoughts!
- Curtis