Devotion 9.28.17

This is the continuation of a series of devotions inspired by Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book, Creation and Fall.  Why?  Because what better place to begin something than with creation itself.  As they say, let’s make first things first.  No need to read the book to understand though you’re welcome to order a copy.

Ex nihilo. Out of nothing.  God creates out of nothing, because in the beginning, “the earth was without form and void.”

To humans this is scary stuff.  Emptiness is scary.  Sensory deprivation can break down humans in a matter of days or even hours.  When you think of our forefathers many had to suffer through psychological trials in taming the vast open plains where everything looked so similar and the distance between families was so large. 

What nothingness in your life is scary.  Are you bored?  I don’t mean sitting around twiddling your fingers bored, but bored with repetition in life- job, family, pastimes, maybe even church?  Is there a scary nothing out there, an unknown future, a question to which you don’t have the answer. . . and you dread it?

Nothingness is scary.  And yet God bursts into nothingness and he creates.  And then later in history he sends his son to earth, so that he can die, but then transform the nothingness of death into something, into resurrection.  The same God who created out of nothing, also resurrects out of nothing.  And the resurrection is a promise for us too. “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Rom 6:4) So look into your life.  This isn’t a call to cast things aside and to simply get to something new.   This is a call to look at those areas of life that seem boring or unknown and start to imagine how God can transform them into something special.

Written by Pastor Dan Borkenhagen, Hope Lutheran