Knowing The Holy Spirit April 17, 2005
The Spirit and Creation
Genesis 1:1-2, 2:7
Last week we saw how the Spirit is in the Trinity, we talked of the trinity as this eternal circle dance, where the Three are One and they are forever giving Glory to each other.
We saw that God always works in Trinity, even in the incarnation, the Father, Son and Spirit were deeply involved.
The creation is also a Trinitarian event – The Spirit is intimately involved in Creation.
Genesis 1
The Beginning
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Genesis 1
Heaven and Earth
1First this: God created the Heavens and Earth--all you see, all you don’t see. 2Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss
I love this Image – the Spirit of God hovering over the Chaos, brooding over it like a mother hen over her eggs.
“The Spirit brooded over the still earth as a bird broods over its nest, warming the dormant life within, wakening it, releasing it, so that the tiny creatures can come to birth.” – Samuel Ryan
The Hebrew for Sprit is the same word as breath, wind, or air. It is an onomatopoetic word – it sounds like the thing it describes. The Word is “Ruach” in Greek it is the same – the same word means Spirit, breath, wind, or air. It also sounds like what it describes: Pneuma is the word. Even the English words Spirit and Ghost have that quality about them – something elusive, a whispering wind.
I like “Ruach” it sounds more like a storm, or a hurricane (at least a gigantic sneeze) than a whispering wind. Maybe this is why the Celts chose the wild goose as a symbol of the Spirit, because they liked the word “Ruach” as well
The Ruach of God was brooding over the Chaos of the deeps, whipping up the waters, not bringing destruction, but bringing order, bringing creation
The Spirit broods over the Chaos and hatches Cosmos
You might know the word cosmos referring to the world or the universe, but in its original Greek that we borrow the word from it also has the meaning of order, clean, beautiful. The Spirit broods over the chaos and brings order, purity, beauty.
Genesis 2
7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
He ruached into Adam’s nostrils the ruach of life and the man became a living being.
He breathed into his nostrils the Spirit of life and the man became a living being.
Adam was just a statue, a model, a mannequin until the Spirit breathed life into him.
The Spirit Brings Life!
I have this image of the Trinity Dancing creation into being.
We are told in Genisis that God spoke creation into being – John calls the Son the Word of God.
John 1
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
The Father Spoke the Word to create, and the Word was Jesus, through him all things were made, and then he Breathed his Spirit and creation became animated with life – the Life of God.
Without God’s Spirit there is no life!
Job tells us in Job 12
7 "But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
8 or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish of the sea inform you.
9 Which of all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this?
10 In his hand is the life of every creature
and the breath of all mankind.
Even his friend Elihu says in Job 33 & 34
4 The Spirit of God has made me;
the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
Job 34
14 If it were his intention
and he withdrew his Spirit and breath,
15 all people would perish together
and they would return to the dust.
It is not just that the Spirit’s breath kick started Life like some diving mouth to mouth: that once we were breathing on our own he could back off! No the Spirit gives life and sustains life, and restores life – The presence of the Spirit in all creation is what keeps creation and stops us from returning to Chaos.
Paul Explains this to the Athenians whe he says in Acts 17
24“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all life and breath and everything else. …. 28‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’
The Holy Spirit is a vital part of the Creative activity of the Trinity, and Creation does not exist without him!
Our Understanding that The Holy Spirit is active in creation has a number of implications.
The first is that it breaks down the divide between sacred and secular – It is not that certain aspects of our lives can be connected to the Spirit like prayer and worship and scripture, and other aspects like work, eating, recreation are not – all of life is animated by the Spirit and therefore all of our life can be connected with the Spirit
Let us Stop demoting the Spirit, regulating him to spheres of church and piety. … The whole of creation is home to the spirit’s operations, and the cosmic fruits issue in new creation.
Second, caring for the environment is a Spiritual act.
It amazes me that the same people who fight to keep creationism in the schools often look askance at the environmental movement. – the two should go together.
God has placed us in this fantastic creation, in part to care for it – to be keepers of the garden. Instead we have most often exploited it . It is not that we are not to use creation for our benefit, but we must find ways to live that does not ruin creation for future generations
Ezekiel 34:18
Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet?
We need to learn, both corporately and individually how to eat and drink without trampling this gift of the Spirit that is creation.
Third when we call on the Spirit to come upon us, for what ever purpose, we are not just calling this elusive presence of the Pneuma of God, we are calling the might Power of the Ruach of God who breaths life into all things! This is no small thing to be filled with the Spirit – he is the Creator Spirit, the storm that brought order out of Chaos!
The Spirit in Redemption Life
I have this new picture of Adam being brought to life by the Power of the Spirit. If I had any image before it was of Adam lying on the ground in the fetal position and God gently breathing into him so that in a few moments he wakes as if from a dream and drowsily looks around at this brand new world that is his to discover. Today I imagine it to be much more forceful, that The mighty Ruach of God comes upon him and like someone using a defibrillator jolts him into being almost explosively.
It is that same power that jolts us to life in God through the Power of the Spirit when we believe in Jesus.
Jesus describes the work that the Spirit does in our life when we receive the Spirit as being born again, or being born from above. The Spirit gives us the physical life that we all have, but when we believe in Jesus, he gives us a Spiritual life that we lacked and we are brought to life through the very Breath of God breathing on us and beginning to make order, purity and beauty out of the chaos of our life.
Do you feel like your life is one of Chaos? Not the Chaos outside of you, but the chaos within?
One Carthusian Monk of the Middle Ages wrote of this inner chaos:
I become aware, Lord, that the world of my own spirit is still formless and void and that darkness still covers the face of this abyss. It is truly in a state of confusion, a kind of dark and terrifying chaos, knowing nothing of its own end or of its own origin or of what sort of being it is. That is how my soul is, my God! That is how my soul is! A wasteland, empty and formless, and darkness is upon the face of the abyss. But the abyss that is my spirit cries out to you, Lord asking you to make a new heaven and a new earth of me too! – Guigo II
Jesus promises us that the Spirit will come and hover over the chaos that is our soul and bring order and purity and beauty. He will bring us to life, so much that we describe the experience as being born, again. – like we were never really alive before. The Spirit of Creation is the one who has Re-created us and who is still Re-creating us.
The Spirit Redeeming Creation
The Bible tells us that God will not just redeem his people, but that he is redeeming all of creation – that there will be a new heavens and a new earth.
Romans 8:21
the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
When you look at the mess that we have made of the environment, you might wonder if God can fix it.
I’m amazed that it is still as beautiful as it is. I was at the cabin last summer, on a beautiful day, when all the greens were tremendously green and the blues were tremendously blue and the birds were singing their praises. And on the radio was a show on how we have irreversibly altered the environment through our misuse. As I heard about all the ways that we’ve trampled the pasture and muddied the waters, I was just amazed that what we have is still so beautiful – that is because of the presence of the Spirit in the Grace of God!
Nick Gumbel has this wonderful story of Jackie Pullinger’s in the Alpha Course of this old woman living in the walled city in Hong Kong – she had been a prostitute for 62 years of her life. Now in her seventies she was too old for that, so she sat outside the brothel using a stick to prod and keep the open sewer moving. She had been addicted to heroin for the better part of her life, so much so that the only place left to inject the poison was her back.
Jackie actually led her to Christ, and she came to live in one of her first stage houses, and then back into the community. The damage done to her body was only a reflection of the damage done to her soul throughout the years. Even as Christian she behaved difficultly, but through the work of the Spirit through the community of fairth, she got better and better, receiving more and more healing. At one point she met a man named Little Wa and they fell in love and got married. On the day of her wedding she walked down the aisle radiant in white, as a sign that God had redeemed her, that the Spirit had hovered over the chaos of her life and brought purity and beauty.
If God can redeem this ancient damaged woman, then He can also redeem this ancient damaged earth! That is the hope that we have.
The incredible thing is that The Spirit allows us and enables us to Partner with him in the recreation of People and the Recreation of the Earth! Through care for souls and care of the creation, we can seek the Kingdom of God in all things.
I want to conclude with the words of a Hymn from the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours
Spirit of God, on the waste and the darkness
Hov’ring in power as creation began,
Drawing forth beauty from clay and from chaos
Breathing God’s life in the nostrils of man,
Come and sow life in the waste of our being,
Pray in us, form us as sons in the Son.
Open our hearts to yourself, mighty Spirit,
Bear us to life in the Three who are One.
Does anyone want this power of creation life within them?
Pray for The Spirit to come.
