That's Why We Call It Good
Sermon
Sermons on the First Readings
Series III, Cycle C
Object:
At the end of the day, God saw that it was good. Indeed, that is the recurring refrain in the story of creation. For at the end of each day, God saw that it was good.
Modern minds may like to quibble about the science of the creation account in scripture, but no one can dispute the beauty of it. Phase by phase, the beauty unfolds.
When the curtain opens on the mysterious pre-creation scene, it is a frightening blackness. We read of both chaos and emptiness, and all of it in the midst of an enveloping, impenetrable darkness. But then God begins to speak. Light pierces and dispels the darkness. There is order in place of chaos, and the former void is filled with purpose. What had been uninterrupted blackness now brims with color, splendor, and life.
Oh, the life! All shapes and sizes: an almost incomprehensible array and variety. Plants and animals, fish and birds -- all of them endowed with their own peculiar beauty and wisdom of design, as well as a magnificent capacity for fruitfulness. That fruitfulness, then, makes this beauty more than a mere still-life portrait. For this life is not static: it is cascading, abounding, and reproducing.
Then, as a crowning element, finally there is one more component in the creative act: a finishing touch on the masterpiece. Humankind -- the artist's personal signature. Or, perhaps even more than that.
Jan Van Eyck was a noted fifteenth-century painter from northern Europe. In 1434, he painted a portrait of the Arnolfini wedding. Visible on the back wall, between the groom and the bride, is a round mirror. A closer inspection of the mirror reveals this charming detail: a small self-portrait of the artist at work, painting the portrait.
Perhaps that is how God completed his creation: not so much with a signature as with a self-portrait. For on the final day of creating, he made man and woman in his own image.
At the end of each day, God saw that it was good. That was the recurring divine verdict on each day. Surely it was good, for, after all, each day God had been at work. His will had been done. He had brought light and life where there had been darkness and chaos, and he called the day good.
The only exception to the pattern comes on the last day of creation -- the sixth day -- Friday. On that day, when God had finished his work, scripture reports that "it was very good" (Genesis 1:31).
The biblical author tends to be understated. He is not given to purple prose or exclamation points. Yet, on the Friday of creation, he breaks from his characteristic economy of language to include this adverb. Now the word "good" was not good enough. God saw that it was very good. Exceedingly good. His work had been accomplished and completed, and so with the end of that day it was very good.
Some centuries later, however, we discover that God's creation is not so very good anymore. Quite the contrary: It had turned very bad. We read the details in Genesis 6 as we are introduced to Noah. The problem is not that the cosmos had lost its majesty, of course, or that the plants and animals had lost their beauty. The problem was humankind. That climactic and cherished component in God's creation had become very bad, indeed.
In stark contrast to what God saw at the end of each day of creation, the writer of Genesis reports that "the Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5). It is an emphatic statement of the human condition: a grim diagnosis, for which the only immediate prescription would be the flood.
Then, some centuries later, in the passage we read from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, we encounter a quite different prescription. The human dilemma remains fundamentally the same as in the days of Noah. Writing on behalf of humanity, Isaiah speaks of "our infirmities," "our diseases," "our transgressions," and "our iniquities." Furthermore, he confesses, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way" (v. 6). It is a statement that could just as well have been made by some poor soul outside the ark when the first drops began to fall. For that matter, it is a statement that could have been made by Adam and Eve, as they clutched their shame-covering-leaves on their way out of the Garden.
The grand confession comes within a larger context of remedy. Those infirmities and iniquities, it seems, are not irresolvable, and those wayward sheep are not irretrievable. For "the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (v. 6b).
"Him"? Whom?
We don't know him by name in this passage. He is introduced only as "my servant," and we read at first that he "shall prosper" (52:13). But most of what follows does not sound to us like prospering. For the prophet goes on to describe a scenario of rejection and taunting, of unjust suffering, seemingly misplaced punishment, and ultimately death.
But this suffering and death are different somehow.
In this fallen world, you and I do not have to look far for examples of injustice or murdered innocents. We can read such stories in newspapers and history books. We think of the students senselessly gunned down on their school campuses, the family devastated by a drunk driver, or the old woman who is killed by a stray bullet in a drive-by gang shooting. So many heartbreaking stories of people who did not deserve to die.
Yet this suffering servant from Isaiah 52 and 53 does not seem to belong in the same category with the rest. His death is unjust, but not senseless. He is innocent, yet not victimized. He dies a cruel and undeserved death, and yet he does not emerge as a tragic figure.
This death is different, for behind all of the apathetic or malevolent human perpetrators involved, we see the hand of God. "Struck down by God," Isaiah reports of this man's death (v. 4). We recall further that it was the Lord who laid on him the iniquity of us all, and "it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain" (v. 10). So this death was not senseless. No, on the contrary, this death was quite purposeful.
Isaiah is clear about the purpose. "Upon him was the punishment that made us whole," the prophet proclaims, "and by his bruises we are healed" (v. 5). Furthermore, his life is identified as "an offering for sin" (v. 10), and, in the process of his undeserved ordeal, "he shall make many righteous" (v. 11).
Quite apart from the senseless and tragic deaths of other innocent men and women in history or in the news, therefore, the death of this unidentified servant is curative. For the people who are hopelessly burdened by infirmities and iniquities find their healing, their redemption, and their salvation in him -- specifically, in his suffering and death.
In the beginning, it was good. And with the creation of humankind in particular, it was very good. Then humanity turned very bad and required some remedy. Isaiah presents this servant as the great remedy for the human condition.
Finally, some centuries after the time of Isaiah's prophecy, we come to the event that the prophet foresaw. The setting is a skull-like hill outside of Jerusalem. The occasion is the crucifixion of Jesus. It is a grim scene: dark and turbulent. The atmosphere is vile, as crowds gawk and conspirators mock. There is bleeding, suffering, and suffocating: all of it unjust and undeserved. The one hanging on the center cross was, indeed, "despised and rejected" and "held of no account" (v. 3).
It is the death of an innocent man, to be sure, but it is not the stuff of tragedy. Above and beyond all the petty antagonists who arranged for his arrest, his scourging, and his sentencing, we see the hand of God. "God proves his love for us," Paul later wrote, "in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). And, like the death anticipated by Isaiah, this particular death is curative: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross," declared Peter, "so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed" (1 Peter 2:24).
Last year on Good Friday, our young daughter asked me, "If this is the day Jesus died, why do we call it 'good'?"
Why? Because it was the day when God breathed his light and life into the darkness and chaos of sin. Because on that day the most cherished but most broken element of his creation was redeemed. And because that Friday was the day when God's work was fully accomplished and completed.
And so, at the end of the day, we see that it was very good. Amen.
Modern minds may like to quibble about the science of the creation account in scripture, but no one can dispute the beauty of it. Phase by phase, the beauty unfolds.
When the curtain opens on the mysterious pre-creation scene, it is a frightening blackness. We read of both chaos and emptiness, and all of it in the midst of an enveloping, impenetrable darkness. But then God begins to speak. Light pierces and dispels the darkness. There is order in place of chaos, and the former void is filled with purpose. What had been uninterrupted blackness now brims with color, splendor, and life.
Oh, the life! All shapes and sizes: an almost incomprehensible array and variety. Plants and animals, fish and birds -- all of them endowed with their own peculiar beauty and wisdom of design, as well as a magnificent capacity for fruitfulness. That fruitfulness, then, makes this beauty more than a mere still-life portrait. For this life is not static: it is cascading, abounding, and reproducing.
Then, as a crowning element, finally there is one more component in the creative act: a finishing touch on the masterpiece. Humankind -- the artist's personal signature. Or, perhaps even more than that.
Jan Van Eyck was a noted fifteenth-century painter from northern Europe. In 1434, he painted a portrait of the Arnolfini wedding. Visible on the back wall, between the groom and the bride, is a round mirror. A closer inspection of the mirror reveals this charming detail: a small self-portrait of the artist at work, painting the portrait.
Perhaps that is how God completed his creation: not so much with a signature as with a self-portrait. For on the final day of creating, he made man and woman in his own image.
At the end of each day, God saw that it was good. That was the recurring divine verdict on each day. Surely it was good, for, after all, each day God had been at work. His will had been done. He had brought light and life where there had been darkness and chaos, and he called the day good.
The only exception to the pattern comes on the last day of creation -- the sixth day -- Friday. On that day, when God had finished his work, scripture reports that "it was very good" (Genesis 1:31).
The biblical author tends to be understated. He is not given to purple prose or exclamation points. Yet, on the Friday of creation, he breaks from his characteristic economy of language to include this adverb. Now the word "good" was not good enough. God saw that it was very good. Exceedingly good. His work had been accomplished and completed, and so with the end of that day it was very good.
Some centuries later, however, we discover that God's creation is not so very good anymore. Quite the contrary: It had turned very bad. We read the details in Genesis 6 as we are introduced to Noah. The problem is not that the cosmos had lost its majesty, of course, or that the plants and animals had lost their beauty. The problem was humankind. That climactic and cherished component in God's creation had become very bad, indeed.
In stark contrast to what God saw at the end of each day of creation, the writer of Genesis reports that "the Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5). It is an emphatic statement of the human condition: a grim diagnosis, for which the only immediate prescription would be the flood.
Then, some centuries later, in the passage we read from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, we encounter a quite different prescription. The human dilemma remains fundamentally the same as in the days of Noah. Writing on behalf of humanity, Isaiah speaks of "our infirmities," "our diseases," "our transgressions," and "our iniquities." Furthermore, he confesses, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way" (v. 6). It is a statement that could just as well have been made by some poor soul outside the ark when the first drops began to fall. For that matter, it is a statement that could have been made by Adam and Eve, as they clutched their shame-covering-leaves on their way out of the Garden.
The grand confession comes within a larger context of remedy. Those infirmities and iniquities, it seems, are not irresolvable, and those wayward sheep are not irretrievable. For "the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (v. 6b).
"Him"? Whom?
We don't know him by name in this passage. He is introduced only as "my servant," and we read at first that he "shall prosper" (52:13). But most of what follows does not sound to us like prospering. For the prophet goes on to describe a scenario of rejection and taunting, of unjust suffering, seemingly misplaced punishment, and ultimately death.
But this suffering and death are different somehow.
In this fallen world, you and I do not have to look far for examples of injustice or murdered innocents. We can read such stories in newspapers and history books. We think of the students senselessly gunned down on their school campuses, the family devastated by a drunk driver, or the old woman who is killed by a stray bullet in a drive-by gang shooting. So many heartbreaking stories of people who did not deserve to die.
Yet this suffering servant from Isaiah 52 and 53 does not seem to belong in the same category with the rest. His death is unjust, but not senseless. He is innocent, yet not victimized. He dies a cruel and undeserved death, and yet he does not emerge as a tragic figure.
This death is different, for behind all of the apathetic or malevolent human perpetrators involved, we see the hand of God. "Struck down by God," Isaiah reports of this man's death (v. 4). We recall further that it was the Lord who laid on him the iniquity of us all, and "it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain" (v. 10). So this death was not senseless. No, on the contrary, this death was quite purposeful.
Isaiah is clear about the purpose. "Upon him was the punishment that made us whole," the prophet proclaims, "and by his bruises we are healed" (v. 5). Furthermore, his life is identified as "an offering for sin" (v. 10), and, in the process of his undeserved ordeal, "he shall make many righteous" (v. 11).
Quite apart from the senseless and tragic deaths of other innocent men and women in history or in the news, therefore, the death of this unidentified servant is curative. For the people who are hopelessly burdened by infirmities and iniquities find their healing, their redemption, and their salvation in him -- specifically, in his suffering and death.
In the beginning, it was good. And with the creation of humankind in particular, it was very good. Then humanity turned very bad and required some remedy. Isaiah presents this servant as the great remedy for the human condition.
Finally, some centuries after the time of Isaiah's prophecy, we come to the event that the prophet foresaw. The setting is a skull-like hill outside of Jerusalem. The occasion is the crucifixion of Jesus. It is a grim scene: dark and turbulent. The atmosphere is vile, as crowds gawk and conspirators mock. There is bleeding, suffering, and suffocating: all of it unjust and undeserved. The one hanging on the center cross was, indeed, "despised and rejected" and "held of no account" (v. 3).
It is the death of an innocent man, to be sure, but it is not the stuff of tragedy. Above and beyond all the petty antagonists who arranged for his arrest, his scourging, and his sentencing, we see the hand of God. "God proves his love for us," Paul later wrote, "in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). And, like the death anticipated by Isaiah, this particular death is curative: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross," declared Peter, "so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed" (1 Peter 2:24).
Last year on Good Friday, our young daughter asked me, "If this is the day Jesus died, why do we call it 'good'?"
Why? Because it was the day when God breathed his light and life into the darkness and chaos of sin. Because on that day the most cherished but most broken element of his creation was redeemed. And because that Friday was the day when God's work was fully accomplished and completed.
And so, at the end of the day, we see that it was very good. Amen.
