“…you thrill to God’s word, you chew on  Scripture day and night. You’re a tree replanted  in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month, never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.”

What a great image for a disciple of Christ and for a church!

I love to read Walter Brueggemann. He is an Old testament scholar with a particularly refreshing perspective on the great themes of scripture. His commentary on Genesis has come off my shelf again as we track through this extraordinary book. As James said, Genesis 1-11 is a key section of scripture and then as we meet Abraham and see the covenant relationship develop from Genesis 12 onwards it seems as if salvation history has really got under way.

I would love to share some thematic thoughts from Brueggemann that I hope will be stimulating. They help us understand the deep mystetry of who we are as creatures who live and move and have their being in the God of the eternity revealed in scripture.

Creator and created…

“First, the creator has a purpose and a will for creation. The creation exisits only because of that will. The creator continues to address the creation, calling it into faithful response and glad obedience to his will. The creation has not been turned loose on its own. It has bot been abandoned. Nor has it been given free reign for its own inclinations. But the purposes of the creator are not implemented in a coercive way, not imposed as a tyrant might. The creator loves and respects the creation. The freedom of the creation is taken seriosuly by the creator. Therefore, his sovereign rule is expressed in terms of faithfulness, patience and anguish.

Second, the creation, which exists only because of and for the sake of creator’s purpose, has freedom to respond to the creator in various ways. As the texts indicate, the response of the creation to the creator is a mixture of faithful obedience and recalcitrant self-assertion. Both are present, though the negative response tends to dominate the narrative….”

Science, creation and proclamation…

Brueggemann suggests that Genesis was written to an Israelite diaspora in 600BC and he reflects on how they should and might have read the creation accounts….

“In interpreting this text, the listening community must speak its own language of confession and praise, which is not the language of ’scientific history’ nor the language of ‘mythology and rationalism’. Neither holds promise for hearing this text….[We] must recognise that what we have in this text is proclamation. The poem does not narrate how it happened….Israel is concerned with God’s Lordly intent, not his technique… The text proclaims a newness which places the world in a situation that did not previously exist. It is news about a transaction which redefines the world. The known world, either of chaos or of management, now becomes a new world surging with the mystery of God’s gracious empowering speech. For that reason, it is important to hear this text as a declaration of the gospel….The good news is that life in God’s well-ordered world can be joyous and grateful response.

The revealed heart of God in the story of Noah…

Genesis 6:6 “…shows us the deep pathos of God. God is not angered but grieved. He is not enraged but saddenned. God does not stand over against but with his creation. Tellingly, the pain he bequeathed to the woman in Gen 3:16 is now felt by God. Ironically, the word ‘grieve’ is not only the same as that used for the sentence on the woman, but is also used for the state of toil from which Noah will deliver humanity. The evil heart of humankind troubles the heart of God. This is indeed ‘heart to heart’ between humankind and God. How it is between humankind and God touches both parties. As Ernst Wurthein suggests, it is God who must say ‘I am undone’.”

God expresses his reationship with Noah as a covenant relationship. It is a relationship in which both parties are intimatley intertwined by consent.  Genesis 8:22 expresses God’s overflowing covenant heart. He is with us. He is for us. He is calling us back to himself. In the story of Noah we witness the anguish of God, the evil of man, the righteousness of one man through whom salvation may spring, the holiness and power of God and ultimately new hope, redemption and a new promise. All these forshadow the ultimate saving act of Christ who died once, for all. The only spotless lamb who gave himself up and emerged not from an ark but a tomb. He ushered in the new and everlasting covenant in which we have unfettered access to the God who created us by grace and the blood of Jesus.

We read on…!