Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a Matthew 28:16-20
The scripture lessons for today from Genesis 1 and Matthew 28 tell us a simple yet radical truth that we constantly need to hear again and again. This truth, this message is not complicated, it’s just that we don’t quite know what to do with it. This message is the very heart of the entire story of Israel and the gospel story of Jesus. Indeed, it is at the core of our own identity and journey of faith. When I reveal to you this not-so-secret truth, my hunch is that you’ll shrug a bit and think… yeah, and? So let’s see. You ready? Ok, here goes – the central message of the entire Bible can be summed up in one simple sentence: God is with us. Let me repeat that: God is with us. We know this in our heads, and perhaps we even feel it in our hearts, but if we pause and reflect on the magnitude of this simple message, I would suggest that this is an overwhelming realization. So let me put it another way: the Creator of the universe who created each and every one of us in God’s own image, this very Creator wants to be in relationship with us, each and every one. Or perhaps better put, this Creator not only wants to be in relationship with us, this Creator in fact is in relationship with us. Indeed, God is with us.
The creation story from Genesis 1 describes in quite some detail precisely the ways in which God is with us. Lest we take how God is with us for granted, listen to a litany of what Genesis 1 recounts. God is with us in the light all around us. We can’t see it or touch it, but there it is, and God envelopes us in this light. God is with us in the darkness. Again, we can’t see it or touch it, but God is present to us in this darkness, in night. God is with us in the creation of the sky, the clouds, and the stars beyond. Billions of light-years away, and yet even there God is with us. God is with us in the waters – so fundamental to our existence. We drink a glass of water without giving a thought, and yet there God is with us.
God is with us in the earth, the dry land upon which we walk and move. Once again, we do not think so much about the land, though in this era of global warming and rising sea levels we are starting to think about it more! Let’s try something – stand up if you are able to. Look down at your feet. Think about that land of carpet under your feet. Think about the foundation of this very building and the earth under it. God created that. We stand upon it because in it God is with us.
And then, of course, we are overwhelmed yet again when we reflect upon all that the earth brings forth – plants and trees of all kinds, flowers that delight our eyes in the light that God has created, the sweet smell of honeysuckle or jasmine that brings its own simple joy. Yet another way God is with us. And the tastes of these plants – the utter surprise of a red or yellow beet (Judy’s favorite vegetable), the earthiness of a potato, how our breath is taken away by the taste of a ripe heirloom tomato, the sweetness of a honeydew melon, the tartness of a grapefruit, the creaminess of an avocado. God is with us in each bite, as each swallow nourishes our bodies. How incredible that God has so coordinated this world that the first things of creation – light, water, earth – in turn all give life to these plants. “And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.”
As if all of this weren’t enough, God goes on to create the fish and the birds, and then all the animals of the land, “living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind. … and God saw that it was good.” Yet again we are overwhelmed. Words, songs, paintings, sculptures – none of it can but begin to describe and capture the amazement we feel as we experience God’s presence in each of these living creatures. Is it any wonder that the movie The March of the Penguins so captured our hearts, or that – if you’re like me – you can turn on virtually any nature show on TV and watch it with childlike curiosity at these creatures all around us. I remember seeing a show on crows; it was amazing to see how clever they were. It was downright astonishing to see them rolling down hills covered with snow, and then as if they had sleds they went back to the top of the hill and rolled down all over again. God is with us in all of these critters. When I take our dogs Gus and Hendrix for walks in the morning I occasionally come upon a parent out for a walk with a small child in a stroller. The child’s wonder and attention is immediately caught. “It’s a dog! A dog!” The brave ones will even reach out to touch and pet. The older ones might ask why our dog Gus only has three legs. (He lost a leg to cancer about a year and a half ago.) But what a marvel these creatures are! And what joy and craziness they bring to our lives. God is with us in all these animals, large and small.
When I was a kid I developed a fascination that I still have for spiders. They are just really cool little critters. Spinning webs, eight eyes, all manner of ways of catching prey. Judy’s not so thrilled with them as I am, but I find them incredible. I’ve sat and watched spiders weave their webs. When I was young I confess that I would occasionally undo one of the anchoring strands of the web to see what the spider would do. I imagine now that the spider cursed me out and sent up its own little prayer to God about this thoughtless human, and couldn’t God do something about this injustice.
And then, finally, God created humankind in God’s own image – male and female, equal in God’s eyes and God’s hopes. How incredible that God created us not as individuals meant to live in isolation, but that God was determined that we be with other people. God created us to be in community with one another. Friends, family, business partners, lovers, even committees. God is with us in and through each other. I think that’s most often how we feel God’s presence, through the people around us. And since we were created in the image of the Creator, we also have the capacity to create communities – which is what we do here each Sunday. We create a community of people who gather to worship and to bear witness to the love and care of our Creator. And God is with us here as we worship.
It is God’s final act of creation that is perhaps the most amazing. On the seventh day God finished creation by resting. Now the original Shabbat, of course, was not Sunday but Saturday. And we are told in the Genesis account that God rested on the seventh day. By making the Sabbath holy God created rest, rejuvenation, recreation. In this rest God creates the space and time for us to be with one another and with all of creation. God is especially with us on this day we set apart to check in with God as a community of faith. It matters not whether we observe the original Shabbat, as in Judaism, or Sunday (the first day of the week) in remembrance of the resurrection within our Christian faith. The Sabbath day is all about resurrection as God restores and creates us anew in the Sabbath rest.
We are told that Jesus observed Shabbat, that he went to synagogue, that he read the sacred scriptures and proclaimed God’s word to God’s people. Jesus also bore witness to God’s presence with us when he called together a new community of disciples, a community that we embody today. Jesus too saw God with us in all of creation -- the birds of the air, a donkey. Remember his appeal to the lilies of the field that neither toil nor spin, but that are more beautifully adorned than even Solomon in all of his glory. Jesus shows us how God’s creation itself teaches us about life and about God’s constant presence with us, God’s constant care for us.
The final words of Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson from Matthew remind us once again of this most central lesson that we need not only to understand with our mind, but that we need to absorb into our hearts and souls, into our very being. As the crucified and risen Jesus commissions his disciples and sends them forth, as he sends us forth, he tells them: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” “I am with you always.” This phrase hearkens back to the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, to the birth story of Jesus. Recall what the angel of the Lord said to Joseph as he was planning to divorce this pregnant Mary, “’Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from the sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet [Isaiah], ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us.’” Jesus is God’s Emmanuel, God’s very presence with us. Just as God was with the people of Israel even as they wandered through the desert for forty years, so in Christ is God with us in our sojourn – ahead of us leading the way, beside us taking our hand, behind us giving us a swift kick in the rear when we need it, saying “get off your butts and let’s go!” (I’m sure that’s in the Bible somewhere.)
Jesus believed and trusted in the God who is with us each step of the way. Even in the midst of rejection, even at the fleeing of the disciples, and even as he cried out on the cross “Eli, eli, lama sabachthani? – My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” – even in this quotation from the beginning of Psalm 22 while on the cross, Jesus believed and trusted in the God who is with us. For by invoking the beginning of the Psalm, a prayer for help in great distress, Jesus also invokes the end of the Psalm, which proclaims with confidence: “I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you… for he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.” The cry from the cross is not a cry of utter abandonment, but a cry that even in the agony of the cross Jesus trusted in the God who is with us, the God who brings all or creation to existence out of nothing, the God who brings life to death. It is with this confidence that Jesus sends out his disciples, sends us out, with the reminder that God is with us always. Emmanuel.
So that is the good news ever before us. But… (you knew there would be a “but”)… this good news comes to us with an implicit question. God is with us, but the question is… are we with God? For in truth, to know in our hearts that God is with us means that we are willing to be searched out and found by God. It means that we respond to God’s grace and God’s love. As God is with us, do we seek to be with God? Do we trust in God’s redeeming presence in our midst? Do we accept God’s acceptance of us in faith? Do we know that we are God’s people and that we are created in God’s very image? Do we look at our neighbor and see God? Do we feel a windy breeze cooling our face on a hot day and know that God is there? When you had breakfast this morning, did you know that God was there? When you go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow, do you know that God will be there? Emmanuel. God is with us.
Emmanuel, the Creator of the universe, the God beyond all, this God is with us in the most intimate way, breathing life and love into our hearts and souls and minds every moment. How amazing it is that this God, this Lord, this savior, this redeemer is with us, even to the close of the age.
Amen and amen.
