In the 50s C.S. Lewis wrote the famous Chronicles of Narnia series. In the Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe, four children find themselves in a mythical land called Narnia. It is winter in Narnia and everything is bleak and dark under the rule of the White Witch. The creatures of Narnia no longer know walks in the cool of day or life in green pastures. But it wasn’t always winter in Narnia. The children learn the true legend of spring before the winter, a time full of life and goodness. As they learn this true legend they begin looking forward to when King Aslan, the great lion, will restore springtime, when the bleak darkness of winter will break under Aslan’s power.
We know the bleak darkness of winter. The winter of sin, death, and decay that marks our world. We know the bleak winter of aborting something like 62 million babies since the 70s. We know the bleakness of how a child can reasonably expect to grow up without a father today or how around 40% of American children sleep in homes without a father. We know the darkness of how transgenderism has increased by 1,000% over last decade or how the porn industry is worth billions. We know the winter of our own lives too. The bleak darkness of the shame we feel for own sin, our inability to defeat our sexual sin, lying, hatred of God, or unbelief. We know the bleak darkness of feeling like a bad father or mother or being bored with God.
To make it all worse, we, as in humanity, wonder if there is any meaning or significance or purpose to any of it. Much of the scientific community is trying explain our origins, to give us some sense of meaning, but they are failing. They can’t explain the meaning of this world yet this world still feels purposeful. They can’t explain the echoes we hear and feel of something better long ago, the legend of springtime. We wonder, has it always been winter? Has sin, death, and decay always marked our world? Or is the legend of springtime long ago true? And if it’s true, will springtime be restored again one day?
Genesis 1-2, the creation account, is the true legend of springtime, written for people in the bleak darkness of winter. It’s not written for people looking for a science textbook to amuse them with theories. It is written for people personally hoping that one day the sun will shine again. Genesis was written for Israel, possibly the generation wandering in the wilderness after the exodus from slavery in Egypt or perhaps for their children. These people have known winter’s bleakness as slaves in Egypt for hundreds of years. I’d expect them wonder with us as they wander around: Has it always been winter? Do we have a good God over us? Is there meaning to our lives? Will it be springtime again? Into this world Genesis tells us the true legend of springtime.
The Bible begins with, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Do we really have a good God over us or is Pharaoh our God? Is our material world eternal or somehow self-creating? Are we the product of a random explosion of stardust, the product of chance and time, with no meaning or purpose? Are we a random collection of cells that has to suffer through a dark winter & can’t explain the reality of intelligence, morality, our sense of purpose, & our sense of a Creator? No. Because “In the beginning, God…”
With this first verse, life is said to have unbelievable purpose and meaning because it is made by a Creator. With one verse we can now explain intelligence, design, purpose, morality, and meaning in the cosmos. This Creator “created the heavens and the earth.” God is before all things. All that exists was created ex nihilo - “out of nothing”. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism says, “The work of creation is God's making all things of nothing…” And this is precisely where much of the scientific community has no clue what to think. One noble prize-winning physicist writes, “The idea of spontaneous generation, where something suddenly, by itself, emerges out of nothing, is scientifically untenable…”. In other words, we can’t argue reasonably and scientifically that something came from nothing. So, what is the solution? The physicist writes, “We now must speak of gradual spontaneous generation.” That’s funny. We can’t say something came from nothing quickly so let’s say it happened slowly. That doesn’t sound very scientific at all.
Robert Jastrow, Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Adminstration’s Goddard Institute writes of our origins: “At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation…[the scientist] has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” If a scientist can ever discover in the lab the truth about the origins of the cosmos, he will learn the Bible-people were right all along.
So, what did this creative God do? “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” The Spirit of God is in the business of taking formless dark voids, bleak winters, and making something good and beautiful. “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” Here must remember the Israelites were perhaps familiar with alternative creation accounts. What is common in other creation accounts is that multiple gods were involved, usually in a struggle of some kind. Sometimes creation itself is god. But what does the true legend say? You worship the waters, sun, and moon, but the LORD made them all. He controls the cosmos. He controls the watery deeps. He controls the lights.
Furthermore, consider with what ease God creates. He creates merely by speaking. Seven times in the creation account we are told God creates by speaking. This is easy work for God. There is no war between gods, no struggle, and creation doesn’t argue back. This God has utter and ultimate control. No energy lost. No sweat. Just a word.
Now, what said in Gen. 1:4 is stunning to those of us in winter. “And God saw that the light was good.” Everywhere we look we see sin, death, decay, and badness. But then here creation is called “good”. Creation is from a good, benevolent, kind God. Seven times we are told God saw that His creation was good and on the seventh time this is unmistakably emphasized so that we don’t miss it: “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” The legend of spring is true! I knew it! It wasn’t always like this! God is not the author of this dark winter. We are. He is the Author of springtime goodness, of light, life, and cool walks in the middle of the day. He created Narnia, so to speak, but we brought about the winter.
At the end of the creation account what happens next puts the Creator’s Fatherly love on blast. “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion…” God here makes his prized creation – us – in his image. We are unlike all other creatures, being like God in some way, showing forth something of what He is like. And then stunningly, he gives us the whole world to enjoy! “God…richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Tim. 6:17). He gives us the authority to rule the cosmos, to have dominion over it, to subdue it, and to fill it, not as cruel taskmasters but like Him as good, kind, righteous rulers.
With creation done in 6 days, what’s next? “And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” God isn’t tired and this is not preparation for another creation cycle. The true legend of creation stops here, with a holy rest that has no end in sight. The account ends with unending springtime. Unending cool walks in middle of the day with the God who loves you. Unending life with God. Unending joy. No shame, no guilt, no fear in life, taking care of His creation with joyous ease.
The legend of springtime long ago is true but how distant this all seems to us. After all, it lasts only two chapters in the Bible, then winter sets. We now wonder, will springtime be restored again? Will badness and sin and death break to the power of a new spring? Will there be a new heavens and earth one day? Here is the answer: Only if God gets to work once again. We authored a winter of sin we can’t break. We can’t author salvation. Only if God gets to work once again will salvation and springtime come.
Sure enough, God gets to work and then one day the Word of God showed up to finish the work, to break the power of this winter of sin and death. The Word, the Word who was with God, and the Word who is God, through whom all things made, came and was a light shining in darkness (see John 1). Then on the cross he said, “It is finished”. Then the Spirit applies this work to us in the same manner God created the cosmos. Listen to 2 Cor. 4:6: For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He’s at it again! God comes to those dead in sin, in the power of winter, and says, “Let there be light!” And speaking of God’s rest, “we who have believed enter that rest…” (Heb. 4:3). For believers, the power of winter has been broken. Take heart. Winter is almost over.
