Sunday, March 27
Read Psalms 100:1-3. What is the human response to the God of Creation, and why?
In Genesis 1, the first message of the Creation account is “God.” We already hear it in the translation: “In the beginning God” (Genesis 1:1). In the first line (Genesis 1:1), the word “God” is placed in the middle of the verse and is underlined by the strongest accent in the Hebrew liturgical traditional chanting in order to emphasize the importance of God. The Creation text begins, then, with an emphasis on God, the author of Creation.
The book of Genesis begins, in fact, with two different presentations of God. The first Creation account (Genesis 1:1-2:4) presents God as infinitely far from humans, the transcendent God, Elohim, whose name speaks about the supremacy of God. The name Elohim denotes preeminence and strength, and the use of the plural form of the word Elohim expresses the idea of majesty and transcendence.
The second Creation account (Genesis 2:4-25) presents God as up close and personal, the immanent God YHWH, whose name many believe denotes closeness and relationship. The Creation text as a whole is, then, an implicit appeal to worship God; first, to be aware of God’s infinite grandeur and power, and at the same time to acknowledge our dependence on Him because He created us “and not we ourselves” (Psalms 100:3). This is why many of the psalms often associate worship with Creation (Psalms 95:1-6; 139:13, 14 [compare with Revelation 14:7]).
This twofold view of a God who is both majestic and powerful, and who is also close, loving, and in a relationship with us, contains an important point about how we should approach God in worship. Awe and reverence go along with joy and the assurance of God’s proximity, forgiveness, and love (see Psalms 2:11). Even the sequence of the two presentations of God is meaningful: the experience of God’s proximity and the intimacy of His presence follows the experience of God’s distance. Only when we have realized that God is great shall we be able to appreciate His grace and enjoy, in trembling, His wonderful and loving presence in our lives.
Think about the vast power of God, who upholds the cosmos, and yet can be so near to each of us. Why is this amazing truth so amazing?
