God’s journey into darkness

“First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss. God spoke: ‘Light!’ And light appeared. God saw that light was good  and separated light from dark. God named the light Day, he named the dark Night.     It was evening, it was morning— Day One.” Genesis 1:1 The Message

The Lord God created a beautiful, joyous wonder filled world. Genesis 1:31 states that “God looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good!  It was evening, it was morning— Day Six.”

At first, in the beginning everything was good; all was filled with glory, His glory, His love. And then brokenness enters creation. Adam and Eve are enticed by sin and evil. Expelled from paradise, pollution and impurity soil His creation. All feels dirty.

So, how do you fix such utter and complete brokenness? It must be a hurt akin to a child’s betrayal of a parent. That is how you fix it: you send your son into this dark world to love it.

And God the Father, Jesus his son and this same hovering spirit will heal the world with love. Late one dark night Jesus explains to a visitor God’s love, His healing,

“There was a man of the Pharisee sect, Nicodemus, a prominent leader among the Jews. Late one night he visited Jesus and said, “Rabbi, we all know you’re a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts you do if God weren’t in on it.”

³ Jesus said, “You’re absolutely right. Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it’s not possible to see what I’m pointing to—to God’s kingdom.”

⁴ “How can anyone,” said Nicodemus, “be born who has already been born and grown up? You can’t re-enter your mother’s womb and be born again. What are you saying with this ‘born-from-above’ talk?”

^5-6 Jesus said, “You’re not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the ‘wind-hovering-over-the-water’ creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom. When you look at a baby, it’s just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can’t see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit.”

This is love: darkness becoming light.