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On the third day, God created life. 

Seven Days With God: Day Three: God Adds Life - Genesis 1: 9-13; John 10: 10­ - August 12, 2007 - Everett J. Bassett

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On the third day, God created life. This summer, my sermons are focusing on the seven days of creation, and what God added each day, according to the creation poem we have in Genesis 1. On Day One, God turned on the lights. On Day Two, God created the balance necessary for the universe as we know it. On the third day, according to Genesis 1, God separated the dry land from the sea, and then brought forth vegetation, yielding seeds and producing fruit.

From our 21^st century scientific perspective, the complex processes - and the millions of centuries - captured in those few words of the Bible are breathtaking. It would be an amazing day's work, even for God: Dry Land, Sea, and then Vegetation - the beginning of life. Those priests who wrote those words in Genesis didn't know just how complex it was. They didn't have microscopes; they had no understanding of single-cell life; there were no such words as amoebas or bacteria.

But even with all those advantages, and all of our knowledge, scientists today still struggle to account for the moment that non-life became life. They can describe all the conditions necessary - they can duplicate many of them, even use 21st century technology to make life happen. But they can't quite explain how all that happened before the technology existed. What sparked the first moment of life that put all of life into motion? That is a question that the Bible answers better than science does. Life was begun by the Supreme Creator we call God. And because that is true, life therefore has purpose and direction -- it is more than a random set of elements and circumstances. It is more than breathing and moving and reproducing. Life is a gift, and it has a purpose and design that God is very much involved with. What I want to do today is to lift up three teachings about life that illustrate what God intended for it to be. I believe these three biblical principles define life beyond mere physical existing - the life God still wants to create.

The first of these three principles is eternity. And the scripture I lift up there is one of the most familiar in the Bible - John 3: 16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

The way the Bible tells the story, when God created life on the Third Day, God's plan was that life would be eternal. The tradition of the Bible is that God placed the first man and woman in the Garden of Eden, and that was a place where death was not known until they disobeyed God, and brought death upon themselves and their descendants. And you could say that the whole rest of the Bible is the story of God's relentless attempt to restore the eternal life He had intended from the beginning.

In order to do that, God reached out and formed a special relationship with the people of the Old Testament. God nurtured that relationship through the ups and downs of the Hebrew people through their history, preparing them to receive the messiah who would bring the fullness of eternal life back to God's creation. And then, when the time was right, God sent His own Son into the world, and Jesus took death head on. His death on the cross defeated the Sin by which death had entered the world; his Easter victory opened the doors of heaven, and restored eternal life. As the apostle Paul wrote about it in I Corinthians 15: 22: "For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all may be made alive in Christ." When God created life, God intended for it to be eternal; when He sent His Son, He restored it to what He had intended.

A few weeks back, I gave my just-turned-four granddaughter a kiss on the cheek. She told me that my whiskers were sharp; I told her, that when I was four and my dad kissed my cheek, his whiskers were sharp, too. And suddenly, she got very serious, and you could see that her mind was turning deeply. "Where is your Dad?" she asked. And I said, "He lives in heaven." Again, the brow furrowed, and the thoughts were deep. "He died?" she asked. And I said, "Yes, he got very old, and very sick, and the doctors couldn't make him better, so God brought him to heaven, and made him all better there." Again, the deep thinking. And then she said, "You know, Grandpa, sometimes when we think people died, they're really only hiding." And I said that I was happy that my Dad was in heaven, because it was a wonderful, happy place. And she said she was pretty sure that he was hiding behind the trees over there. And I realized that she had come to an understanding about death that was okay for her for the time being.

            On the one hand, she was fitting a very difficult truth into her concrete world-view. But on the other hand, she struck a chord inside me that is interwoven with my deepest being. I believe my father and mother are 'just beyond the trees.'  I believe that their lives are eternal, and live very close to me. And I believe there are some realities in this world that are so profound and so deep that they transcend death and enter the realm of eternity, and that they were created to do that from the very beginning. A man named Edwin Hubbel Chapin wrote, "Every action in our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity." I believe God through Christ made that possible.

The second biblical principle about life is abundance; and the Bible verse there is John 10: 10: 'Jesus said, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.'''

One disenchanted man once wrote, "I believe in eternity, because I've waited for my wife in the fabric store." It's one thing to believe in eternity; but eternity is only a happy thought if you also believe that it will be filled with something great - something more than waiting in the fabric store. In other words, eternal life is only a good thing if you believe in God's abundance - abundant joy, abundant peace, abundant hope. Jesus came so that we might have life, and have it abundantly. We don't know what heaven will look like; it will be filled with abundant life.

But the thing is, it is just as apparent that the promise of abundant life from Jesus isn't just meant for after we die; it is also something God would will for us to experience here and now in this earthly life. This is the reason Jesus paid such attention to healing and encouraging the people around him, and teaching ways that society can be more loving and forgiving. So many people miss out on what God would give them, because of the sinful and limiting aspects of life as we have decided to organize it and live it. And we tend to want to live our lives in a box of rules and conventions that limit life as God made it.  Let me just give a rather tongue-in-cheek example:

Sharon and I had a profoundly beautiful opportunity to visit two other countries over the last few weeks. Traveling to a different place was a wonderful experience on so many levels. And on the trip, I found that I could do something that convention says I cannot do in my normal life here - and that is, I could wear sandals with socks. Sandals with socks makes so much sense to me - because sandals are so lightweight and functional and feel so good on your feet. But then sometimes your toes get cold. So you put on a pair of socks. But I've been told by people that when I do that, I look totally uncool. On the one hand, I'm encouraged by that, because it implies that other than wanting to wear sandals with socks - I'm cool! On the other hand, I still like the feel of sandals with socks. Now here's the beautiful thing: in Sweden and Norway, lots of men wear sandals with socks. I fit right in! (Well, at least my feet did.) What I found out there is that it makes some difference whether you're talking dark socks or white socks­ but at least I could break that rule.

Here's the point: this is not really about socks and sandals. It's about the way we human beings surround ourselves with rules and conventions that say, You can't wear that. Or, you can't say that. Or, you can't think that. Or, you shouldn't feel that way or be that way. We all know that there are rules that must govern our society that have very good reasoning behind them. But we also know that there are also restrictions of fashion and social pressures that can stifle the spirit and crush the soul in ways that God never intended. I haven't been cool for a long time, so my sandals-with-socks example is given and taken light-·heartedly. The problem is, take that same sense of proper fashion and put it on a junior high youth whose family can't afford name-brand clothes - suddenly you're talking about immense social pressure. Take that same sense of what's proper and what isn't, and you start saying, A man doesn't show his emotions that way, or, That's not the proper place for a woman. And then you start limiting the opportunities for abundant life - for freedom, for the deepest joy. For what God wanted life to be. And then build societies around those human conventions that say, this person is allowed a large piece of the pie, and that person isn't - because of race, or creed, or class, or gender, or age, or sexuality, or any of the other lines we draw between people - and then you're talking about major injustices and oppression on a powerful scale.

Jesus attacked that kind of thinking - that kind of limiting of life. What bothered him the most was when people used religion as a way to stifle abundant life - when people took their own prejudices and conventions and said, this is what God wants. And today, whether you are talking about Islam or Judaism or Christianity or any other religious faith - there is a strong drive to take that faith and make it into rules and say This is what God wants. And then to even violently enforce it. There is a strain of this religion that says that life is meant to be limited and painful and self-neglecting. That kind of thinking is so far removed from the third day of creation, when God said, "Let the earth produce seeds and fruit and plants of every kind." And this beautiful abundant life unfolded and flourished. And God declared that it was good. I believe that is still God's dream for this world. And I believe God wants us to embrace this dream.

And that is the third biblica1 principle for today - and that is that life is a choice. And the verse is from Deuteronomy 30, verse 19: "I call heaven and earth," (says the Lord), "to witness...that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose

life ... " It is one thing to say that God intends for life to be eternal and abundant; we also need to understand that we choose whether life will become that or not for us.

One day on our trip, Sharon and I pulled the car over at one of the most spectacular spots I have ever witnessed - twin waterfalls storming down the side of a mountain. The mist sprayed on your face; the sound was awe-inspiring; it was glorious. There was a sense that life was so full and inspiring in that place. Next to the falls was a souvenir hut, and behind the table was a woman whose every expression indicated that the thought in her head was, "I can't believe I've got to spend another day working next to these blasted waterfalls." We all know those days. On those days, we make a choice - we can look at what God has done, or not. We know that there is a lot that is ugly in this world - but we can choose to look at the beautiful. There is a lot that is despairing in this world - but we can be those who hold onto hope. There is a lot that is unjust and unfair and spirit-killing in this world - but we can choose to work for justice and fairness and life for everybody.

I know it is probably only coincidence, but I can't help but think about the power of the third day in the Bible. On the third day of creation, God introduced life - eternal, abundant, our blessed choice - into creation. And on the third day after the crucifixion, Jesus rose from the tomb, introducing life as the most powerful force in this world - full of love and hope and abundance. Death was defeated. Life was victorious.

And in this dark and despairing world, where death so often appears to have the upper hand, I believe the God of life is still creating. And I believe that creation continues in us. Let the people of God declare the victory of life; let the Easter people stand up and demand that the fullest life be available to all of God's people; let that be the message this church declares every day; and let that be the call that shapes the living of each and every one of us - there are too many voices in this world for despair and prejudice and violence and death. In the middle of that, let yours and mine be voices of life. And if we make that decision with all our heart, we can be sure that God will use it powerfully, and that eternal, abundant life will continue to grow into the wonderful gift God intended.