Creation

Then God said,
"Let us make humankind in our image,
according to our likeness...

So God made humankind in His image,
in the image of God He created them;
male and female He created them.

And it was so.

God saw everything that He had made,
and indeed, it was very good.

And there was evening,
and there was morning,
the sixth day.

(NRSV)


Having made everything in the universe, God created human beings . The writer sees this as the pinnacle of God’s creation. In this respect, Genesis and Darwin agree - humans are the top of the tree in terms of creation and evolution...(though we would say that, wouldn’t we!)

What the writer of Genesis understood better than we do in our day is that we remain part of Creation - and are not separate from it.

This sense of "connectedness" was beautifully expressed by Chief Seattle in his Testimony:

"The earth does not belong to Man; Man belongs to the earth.
Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.
Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it..."

We may have dominion over the earth - and have spread to all parts of the globe - but we remain only part of the glory and pain of life on earth.

God entrusted His jewel of a planet to creatures made in His own image and likeness. That image and likeness is found in every human face on earth - every colour, every race reflects something of the glory of God.

On each day of Creation as told in Genesis 1, there is a refrain. God gazes on what He created that day and sees that it is good.

On the last day of Creation, God looks on everything He has made - and sees that it is very good..

Part of our make-up as creatures made in the image and likeness of God is to do the same - to look on all that has been made and to see that it is good.

We know infinitely more than the writer of Genesis about how life has developed. We see photographs of our planet taken from the "light in the sky" - the Moon - and know that men have walked on its surface. We see pictures of galaxies - and images of electrons. We know about creatures who live in places the writer of Genesis did not know existed - the Americas and the Polar ice-caps.

Drinking from the Wellspring

From time to time, look again at the heavens
- or watch birds -
- or marvel at a science programme -

Then remember
- as a creature made in the image and likeness of God -
- to look at what you see -
and see that it is indeed
very good.

© 1998 Wellspring


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