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Tuesday Morning Epistles Welcome to “Tuesday Morning”—a half-day later than usual, but Tuesday never-the-less. Thanks for joining us.[A day later for the EMFS, but always welcome.]
Spring is here. Finally! While there will be some chilly days ahead—like this week in the middle of our country—Spring has arrived. Just look outdoors. Tree leaves are green again, except pin oaks—their turn is coming soon. Look outside. A mother goose sitting on her nest in one of the planters by our pond has been there for a few days short of a month. Any hour now, “papa” goose will return to our water-front and together with “mother goose” will celebrate the hatching of their young. We have counted 5 white eggs—from a distance, of course. Spring is here. Five new-born Canadian geese will discover lake water for the first time. It’s Spring!
Easter spoke “Resurrection” for Christians everywhere. What once was dead and buried has been resurrected from the dead and lives forever! Hallelujah! This week’s “Tuesday Morning” is entitled “Creation.” You will like this one! It is attached below. Read on below whenever you are ready to celebrate Resurrection again all week long.
Tom Barnard A Senior Celebrant
________________________________________________________________ Creation Tom Barnard
ne of the most powerful poems ever written with a biblical theme was James Weldon Johnson’s poem, Creation. It originally appeared in print in The Book of American Negro Poetry, edited by Johnson and published by Harcourt, Brace and Company in 1922. Here is the opening verse:
And God stepped out on space, And He looked around and said, “I’m lonely— I’ll make me a world.” And far as the eye of God could see Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred
Down in a cypress swamp.
I’ve never been “down in a cypress
swamp” at
Then God smiled, And the light broke, And the darkness rolled up on one side, And the light stood shining on the other, And God said, ‘That’s good!’
I wonder what God thinks when he reflects on his world today and examines the plight of families and nations. Would he say, “That’s good”? or would he ask, “What have you done with my Creation?”
“Regret” is not a description of God that can be found in the biblical record. But “grief” is. In Genesis 6:6 are these words: “The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.” The King James Version translates the word “grieved” as, “it repented the Lord.”
Did God become “repentant” because
of something He had done? Did God change his mind about
having created humankind? Not at all. He grieved because of
something human beings had done. Would he be grieved
today at what nations have done to the world that brought a
smile to his face originally? I believe he would. If that is the
case, what do we need to do to create the right kind of change
in our nation and world? This often-quoted verse in 2 Chronicles
says it very well (
“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Here is how Johnson concludes his poem:
Up from the bed of the river God scooped the clay; And by the bank of the river He kneeled Him down; And there the great God Almighty—Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky, Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night, Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand; This Great God, Like a mammy bending over her baby, Kneeled down in the dust—Toiling over a lump of clay Till He shaped it in His own image; Then into it He blew the breath of life, And man became a living soul. Amen. Amen.
What will it take to be re-created by God? Let him blow the breath of life into your soul. He is ready. |