God created.  There is so much wonder and joy, power and glory in those two words.  I have no way to unpack that here, today, in this hour, but we can live the wonder and the joy, and exult in the power and the glory every hour of every day.  Our God is a Creator: where there was nothing, He makes something.  Where we see no possibility, God acts, speaks, and there is something good, miraculous, breathtaking.  God teaches us hope; God teaches us faith.

          He created the heavens and the earth (1:1).  For a non-scientific account, Scripture tracks well with the accounts of science.  Does the night sky leave you in awe, the images of far galaxies, nebulae?  Constellations, planets, meteor showers, the northern lights, for those who have seen them—and from where do we behold all this wonder?  This little planet, set in all that vastness.  God cares as much about the small, the least, as the vast and grand.  This is as true spiritually as astronomically.  God sees and knows each of us completely and loves each of us.

          We are told that, in the beginning, the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep (1:2).  How does that feel?  Lonely?  Cold?  Intolerable?  Or peaceful, even inviting?  To me, it feels like the hush of the day before Easter.  No sound, no sight.  Perhaps something like a sense of touch, the touch of that surface of the deep.  And how does it feel, to touch the surface of the deep?  Like touching the hem of His garment?  Untold power, unfathomable wonders, just about to begin.  Our faith is always about beginnings, even when we face endings—especially then!

          Our faith is about God, whose Spirit was hovering over the waters, the surface of the deep (1:2).  What waters?  Scholars offer various explanations; I can only offer the mystery, the wonderful, loving, merciful, holy mystery of God.  God is poised, ready.  With God’s Word, we have the sense always that something is about to happen.  It happens suddenly and God has been preparing it for untold ages.  This is as true for your life and my life as for the universe.  God is actively interested and actively engaged in the small as well as the vast, the ordinary as well as, as much as, the extraordinary.

          God creates light (1:3).  A light has to be lit.  A light needs a lighter, whether nuclear fusion in the sun, the electrical switch completing the circuit, the match lighting the candle, or the Spirit opening blind eyes, awakening slumbering souls, or the Word of God speaking, creating something where there had been nothing, life where there had been darkness.

          Darkness is a curious thing,  We know what it looks like, yet we don’t truly see darkness.  We need light to see, and where there is no light there is no sight, as our stubbed toes and banged shins remind us as we stumble about in the dark.  Darkness is the inability to see.  There had been darkness; then God speaks light, creates light where there was no light.  By that light we see, and by that light we begin to recognize darkness.  God gives us light to see, to see our way to Him.  God lights our way to Him.  No wonder God saw that the light was good (1:4)!

          Darkness and light don’t truly mingle.  It’s not like white and black paint, mixed together to make so many shades of gray: whichever shade seems most attractive to this person or that one.  Light dispels darkness.  There is much darkness, as we know, as we can see by the light God gives us, the wonderful, stunningly beautiful light.  We know darkness because we know light.  Without light, we don’t know; we cannot: darkness is the inability to see.

          God makes a separation between light and darkness (1:4).  Limits, boundaries, lines.  Separation, exclusion.  Of course there is night and day, but we don’t quite live our lives by this Creation truth, this testimony of Creation.  A little blending, a little accommodation, a little adulteration—though we don’t use that word.  Separation is not good; exclusion is not good, as we have been taught.  Righteousness is good, as we know, and sin is bad, as we know.  But we don’t quite seem to know the difference, and who can tell us?  We don’t quite seem to want to know; we don’t quite want to be told.  Who will cause us to see?

          The Hebrew pattern, the Jewish pattern for the day is established in these verses of Genesis: from darkness into light.  There is a deep spiritual truth, here.  Our long day’s journey is not into night but light.  Why does our day seem to begin at dawn?  Why, for Christians, is the dawn the beginning?

          Jesus comes to us as light in darkness, as new creation, as the sure sense that something wonderful, something holy, is about to begin.  Have you wondered why he didn’t begin sooner?  Why did he wait until he was nearly thirty?  Those of us beyond thirty might have some thoughts about that.  What of his childhood?  There is a so-called gospel, the so-called Gospel of Thomas.  It wasn’t written by Thomas and it isn’t a gospel: it wasn’t written to proclaim the Good News.  That writing tells several supposed stories of Jesus’ childhood.  Oh, he does healing.  He is unearthly wise and eloquent for a five year old, and those who irritate him little five-year-old Jesus unhesitatingly blinds, maims, or kills.  Even in the second century, the Church rejected this writing.

          Perhaps we are told so little of the childhood of Jesus because it was completely ordinary.  It’s hard to think of Jesus as ordinary, let alone completely ordinary.  When Jesus was baptized, the inauguration of his earthly ministry, his mission, he came to the Jordan in a completely ordinary way.  Only John, by the Spirit, recognized the extraordinariness of Jesus.  Jesus goes from there in a completely ordinary way.  He walks around.  He sits, talks, and eats.  He sleeps—a lot—ministry can be exhausting!  He prays—a lot!  And he is always bringing the good news that something wonderful is just about to happen, is happening: new creation, new life, light for darkness, Yes for No, hope for despair, possibility for impossibility, ability where there was no thought of ability.

          Extraordinary Jesus comes to us in ordinary ways, in ordinary people.  One of the most stunningly extraordinary things Jesus does was one of the most ordinary: he washed the feet of his disciples.  Foot washing was not extraordinary, not unheard of or shocking.  Jesus always was always making the ordinary extraordinary; indeed, Jesus is the embodiment of the extraordinariness of the ordinary, and that is great hope for everyone and a life-making example for us.

          Today, together, we recognize God’s call to ordination and leadership through service at work in four of our own.  Carl Coffman is already ordained, and we rejoice in his renewed call to servant leadership.  Today, we ordain Anna Jackson, Jennifer Kincannon, and Pam Sanders.  Meaning this in the best possible way, I tell you these four are very ordinary people, just like me, just like you.  What we witness today is God’s extraordinary act in their lives and in our life together.  May what we do here this morning serve always as a reminder that our God creates, gives light, and delights in our faith that He is always poised, ready to do something absolutely, wonderfully, joyfully amazing.  Go and be amazing for God.

          To the God of all grace, who calls you to share His eternal glory in union with Christ, be the power forever!  Amen.