As with most people, I love coming to the mountains. Somehow the rugged terrain, dark swaying pines, and trembling aspens directs my gaze upwards. Or perhaps it is the billowy white clouds against a cobalt sky that draws me. Maybe, it is the delicate palate of the wildflowers poking out of emerald grass. No matter the cause, when I stand in an Alpine meadow my spirit soars in ecstasy reaching towards my maker. As I type this, those same clouds, now gray and pregnant with rain crowd around and soon refreshing rain will fall…at least that is what I expect. These marvelous mountains witness to Kohl Yahweh, the towering presence who conceived all of this.
Look out into the deep darks of space, filled with spinning galaxies and breathtaking nova, or look down into the microbial life of fungi working in concert with plants to cleanse our atmosphere of pollutants, threatening to choke us, and you find evidence of the towering intellect. Words fail to adequately capture this magnificence. One even hesitates to assign limiting gender with limiting pronouns such as him. The Lord, the God who designed all of this, lurks behind every trembling leaf, pointing pine, tiny mushroom, or spinning galaxy pinwheeling through the dark. That God would take note of me, deigning to reveal His presence to this minute insignificant blob, stumbling through this world amazes…and humbles. The sweeping vastness and beauty of God’s creative power amazes and drives one to worship. Yet, we so often miss the point.
We look at creation, this glorious creation, and turn it into a point of theological argument. I have friends that are convinced that creation took seven twenty-four hours periods, and other friends that are equally convinced that it took eons, both groups devout practicing Christians, and both equally convinced that the other is woefully misguided and bordering on lost. I am not a theologian, so I do not understand the need for such a strong stand on something no human witnessed. It just seems to me that the wonder and majesty of God’s handiwork ought to outweigh our mere human attempts to interpret whispers from past events we did not see. When I walk through dark forests or across sunlit meadows, my heart echoes the opening words of Psalm 19.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
5 which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
Through our intransigence we have turned what Yahweh intended to be a unifying force which draws us together in praise to God’s power, beauty, and might into an argumentative cudgel to beat each other with, or a wedge to separate. We miss the point. In our arrogance and pride, we assume that we can somehow plumb the depths of a misty past, arriving at a logical conclusion about issues we barely understand. Walk in the woods and breathe deeply of Adonai’s creative power and might. Revel and enjoy, be uplifted by the magnificence of God’s craft. Look deeply into the delicate balance and wonder. Look far out into the darkest reaches of space and be humbled by the titanic scale of the universe. Let this majestic creative work point you toward Elohim and drive you to your knees in worship. But please, do not use your feeble understanding as a weapon to divide God’s body. Instead, let us go out into creation and join with it in praise the Lord of all creation.
