John 1:1-5
“It’s No Accident”
September 15, 2002

         Several of you have asked me what it’s like to come back to work after three months away on sabbatical. Well, one aspect of returning to active duty has been a vivid reminder of all the various tasks I perform in an ordinary week. For three months I haven’t written a sermon, returned a phone call, paid a pastoral visit, attended a meeting or solved a computer problem in the church office. It’s been good to get a fresh look at it all.

         Part of that fresh look is to remember that what I do is sometimes a mystery to others, especially children. Every now and then a child in the church will look at me with a big question mark in her eyes. “Pastor Steve,” she’ll say, “I see you here every Sunday morning giving a sermon and all that. But I was, like, wondering. What do you do the rest of the time?” Occasionally, that dear child goes on to ask, “Do you have a real job?”

         So then I try to explain and somehow justify my existence for the other six days of the week. That’s going to be even more difficult now that our church has chugged along just fine for thirteen weeks without me around. I’ll have to work on my answer.

         The ordinary work of God can be just as mysterious as being a pastor. We all know what the Bible says God has done. He created the world. He caused a flood. He led the people of Israel out of Egypt. He sent prophets and worked miracles. Then He sent us Jesus, followed by apostles who were pretty busy for a few years. But hundreds and even thousands of years can separate the major events of God’s work. So the general picture of God in Scripture is kind of like a pastor showing up on Sunday morning. We see Him doing great things every once in awhile, but what’s He doing the rest of the time?

         Last week looking at the end of Romans 8, we read that God does everything. His providence moves the whole universe for His good purpose. That means God must be doing something all the time. But what? What is the Lord up to during the week, on all those ordinary days which go by without miracles and revelations?

         This summer one thing I did do was read a book entitled On Creation, Conservation and Concurrence by Francisco Suarez.[1] It was an attempt to answer our question. The ordi­nary and everyday providence of God involves three kinds of action. First, God creates. That’s today’s topic.

         Second, God conserves what He has created. This is not conservation in the ecological sense. Conservation is the work by which God, moment by moment, keeps His creation in existence. If He stopped conserving even for a second, the universe would vanish.

         Third, God concurs in everything His creation does. This doesn’t mean He approves of all His creatures do, the way we ordinarily speak of concurring. But concurrence is the way in which God does what Romans 8:28 says He does. He actually participates in every event that happens in the world, working it into His plan according to His will.

         So this Sunday and the next two, I plan to cover those three great aspects of God’s ordi­nary providence: creation, conservation, and concurrence.

         We start with creation even though it’s not exactly something God does every day. As both the Genesis text and the Gospel reading from John say, creation was “In the beginning.” It happened once, at the beginning of time. However, unless we grasp and believe the full truth of creation, we won’t be able to comprehend the rest of what God does all the time to guide His world.

         The full Christian doctrine of creation says more than just that God made the world. As I tried to explain to the children, God creates in a way that is radically different from the way you or I create. Unlike we do, God creates ex nihilo, from nothing.

         Beth and I are anxiously awaiting the opening of a new Jerry’s home store being constructed in Springfield. Then when we undertake some domestic project we won’t have so far to travel for materials. When we need plants and garden supplies, or lumber and nails, it will be easy for us to heed the advertising and “Head for Jerry’s!”

         It’s totally different for God. When He made heaven and earth, He made no list of materials for a trip to the cosmic lumberyard. Nobody filled His order for a few gazillion hydrogen atoms, a celestial truckload of heavier elements, and a bazillion tubes of gravity to paste it all together. God didn’t need to head for Jerry’s or anywhere else. God began His creation with absolutely nothing.

         So Genesis starts “In the beginning God…” That’s all there was in the beginning, only God. And then we are told how God spoke, “Let there be light,” and it came into being. God spoke and the world came into being. John is really telling the same story. “In the beginning was the Word…” God’s voice speaking was the beginning of it all. The only tool or material God used to create was His own Word.

         I realize that creation ex nihilo, from nothing, wouldn’t make the top ten if we took a survey of popular Christian doctrines. It may even be news to some of you. As Christians we spend a lot more time thinking about the love of God, Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the promise of forgiveness and salvation. But let me explain why the fact that God created from nothing is important to believing in providence. Let me explain why creation ex nihilo is a crucial part of our faith that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.

         Suppose, like ancient mythology or philosophy did or the Mormons do now, that God started with something when He created. Suppose there was some kind of matter there first and all God did was give it shape and order. Or just start where science does, with a kind of cosmic egg, a singularity that explodes in the Big Bang to create the universe. Just assume there wasn’t nothing, but something besides God at the beginning of it all.

         Now think about what happens when you use material to create something. When we were first married, Beth made drapes for our apartment. She got a book on it and learned how to measure the window, sew in lining and form the pleats. But she discovered that there were a couple factors which governed her drapery construction. The width of the cloth forced her to create seams and the design she chose required buying extra fabric to make the design match at those seams. So the material she used produced accidental factors in her sewing which were beyond her control. That’s exactly what would be the case if God had made the universe out of some pre-existing stuff, whether it’s formless matter as Plato said or a singularity as in modern cosmology. Whatever the stuff is, it would limit what God could do.

         We have architects and engineers among us. They will tell you the same thing. Using certain materials means a building can only be so high, a bridge can only span so far. If you are writing software, the language and pre-existing code you use will partially determine what your program can do. Materials create limitations, create factors beyond the control of the creative process.

         But if God creates from nothing, then nothing limits His control. He can be Lord en­tirely over everything He makes. There are no accidental factors in His creation. The world and everything in it is just exactly what He meant it to be. We can believe in the sort of providence we celebrated last week, a total assurance that God is bringing us where He wants us to be.

         The alternative is that the world we live in is not entirely God’s creation. That at least some of it comes from somewhere else. That His providence is not the reason for it all. Where do you land if don’t believe that the universe all came from God? You land in a world where many events don’t make sense, where things just happen beyond God’s control and without meaning, where chance rather than providence may have the last say.

         Ken Kesey’s novel Sometimes a Great Notion, was made into a Paul Newman movie. It tells the story of a logging family on the Oregon coast trying to keep their business and their way of life against the odds in difficult times. It’s a powerful image of world ruled by chance instead of providence.

         A number of terrible accidents happen to this family and their community as they defy the union to keep working their logs. Their trucks are burned, one man drowns, another is electrocuted, and another has his arm crushed by a falling tree. At one point Newman’s wife tries to get him to stay home, but her father-in-law eggs him on. What’s it all for, she asks the old man, played by Henry Fonda.

         “Well, don’t you know”, he says, “to keep on goin’, that’s what. To work and sleep and eat and drink and keep on goin’.”

         “And that’s all?” she asks him.

         “Honey sweet,” he calls her, “that’s all there is. That’s the whole ball of wax.”

         If you don’t believe in God’s creation of the world from nothing that really is the whole ball of wax. You live in a world that has no point, a world of pointless accidents. You are in the world Bertrand Russell described:

…purposeless,  …void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief… Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; …his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms.[2]

         Without creation, life itself is a cosmic accident. Science now knows that life is only possible in our universe because certain physical constants are just exactly what they need to be. If the strong nuclear force were just a little higher, hardly any hydrogen would form and water would be unknown. But if that force were just a little weaker, there would be no elements but hydrogen. If gravity were only a tiny bit stronger stars would burn out too fast to support life on planets around them. However, if gravity were slightly less, then the heavy elements which make planets could not form.[3]

         So without creation, you have to assume that we were just gigantically lucky. Out of all the possible ways the universe could go, it just happened to take the narrow route which made us possible. Our existence is merely a gigantic collection of coincidence.

         The beginning of the Gospel of John tells a different story, a story in which life is not merely the luck of the draw. Everything was made by someone and for someone, the one called here “the Word.” The Word was with God and was God. He was with God in the beginning. That Word, we learn as John continues, is Jesus Christ.

         Verse 2 says that everything was made by Him, by Jesus. Over the centuries, theology has understood that to mean God made the universe through and for Jesus as the plan and purpose of it all. As Romans 8 suggested last week, Jesus Christ is God’s reason for every­thing. He is what it’s all about. Knowing and loving and becoming like Christ is what God made us for. Jesus is the reason we “keep goin’.” As verse 4 of John 1 tells, “In him was life.” In Him we have a reason for living.

         Writing about God’s design being visible in nature, William Dembski tells us that Christ as the reason for existence changes the way we think. Even science is ultimately not just about what happens in the world, but about why it happens, about Christ. Sure, one can do science without remembering Christ. It is done all the time. But in the end our theories will not be complete, they will not mean anything, unless they finally take aim and focus on the one whom John says is our light.[4]

         John tells us in verse 5 that “The light shines in the darkness.” That light of Jesus Christ is shining clearly here in the pages of Scripture. Anyone willing to take a good look will discover how He illuminates life, taking it out of the dark realm of chance and accident and bringing it into the daylight of God’s loving purpose for us.

         In my previous church there was a little girl with Down’s Syndrome. To look at Michele’s round face and dull eyes, one could easily be persuaded that ugly accidents happen in life. What possible purpose could there be for her existence? How could God have planned her? Maybe it’ true that God just does the best He can with the material He has to work with.

         But you would think that way about Michele only because of what the end of verse 5 explains. Though the light is shining “the darkness has not understood it.” Confronted with a cruel disability, it is tempting to see accident instead of purpose in life, to be confused by the dark instead of confident in the light.

         Yes, you might think that Michele’s birth was unfortunate. You might suppose those who want to catch such births in time to stop them from ever happening are right. You might think her whole life is just really bad luck. But that would be darkness failing to understand the light. Because you wouldn’t ever think such things, if you had heard Michele say she loved Jesus and then watched her smile.

         You see, if the universe is here for any other reason than God’s creation of it for Jesus, then Michele’s life does make no sense. If the point of life is the accident Ken Kesey or Bertrand Russell say it is, then there’s no reason for Michele. But if the world was created out of nothing for Jesus, if “all things were made by him and without him nothing was made,” then Michele’s life makes perfect sense. It makes sense because she was made for the same reason as anyone else. She was made to love Jesus. And she does. And God is bringing her life towards the same glory in Jesus which He wants us all to share.

         Remember God’s creation. Remember that His creation came from nothing. As He goes about His work, nothing hinders Him. You might say that not even nothing hinders God. There are no limits on what He’s made and how He can direct it. Every life, every atom was brought out of nothing because He wanted it to be. And when He is finished, in Jesus Christ it will all be light, all be good once again.

         Amen

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2002 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj