Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the
waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were
below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.
God called the expanse
heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. (Genesis 1: 6-8)
Asteroid impacts churned the surface of the Earth, and volcanoes spewed
out the insides of the world. Gas, dust,
and star-stuff blew into the sky, scorching, trying to burn air away, but the
sky was so heavy. The dense atmosphere weighted
down the boiling seas of poisoned water and liquid rock, imprisoning oxygen in the
toxic earth. The world was suffocating, so
God spoke.
Sky and sea ceased their battle. They
exchanged elements. Methane above for oxygen
below. O2 for CO2. The atmosphere slackened, and the liquid
surfaces of the Earth calmed.
The lighter sky gave the earth some space, room to breathe, time to cool
off. The waters above met the waters
below in peace and marked out an expansive, demilitarized zone on the surface
of the earth.
But the author of Genesis noted in verses 6-8, on the 2nd day
of the vision, God didn’t declare His work to be good. (Yes, I’ll wait while
you read it again.)
On
the 2nd day, the world was all sky and sea, but the life God planned
needed more.
Then God said, “Let
the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land
appear”; and it was so.
God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the
waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1: 9-10)
Sky, sea, AND land. Now,
that was good.
It took two days for the author of Genesis to visualize how
God had prepared the world to support the full complexity of life.
Or to think of it another way, God showed the author (and
us) that some good works require more time.
To do THIS thing right, to do it good,
you may have to work twice as hard, twice as long as you did the previous time.
Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered
into one place, and let the dry land
appear”
One land?
In 1912, Alfred Wegner proposed the
ridiculous idea that the continents were floating away from one another, AND in
the distant past, all land had been connected in a single supercontinent. The consensus
of the world’s scientists was that Wegner was an idiot.
The consensus of the world’s scientists was wrong.
In the 1960’s the new science of plate tectonics
“discovered” that long ago, the waters
below the heavens were gathered into one
place so that the dry land, earth, appeared
as a single mass.
Light, heavens, sea, and now, land.
Sunlight, air, water, and soil: all the things plants need to grow. Microbes were fruitful and they multiplied. One cell became many until there were enough
cells together for Moses to see them sprouting with his naked eye. Since the invention of the microscope 400
years ago, we have known by science, what 2,000 years ago, the church already understood
by faith: that the worlds were framed by the word of God in such a way that the
things which are seen are made of things which the naked eye cannot see (Hebrews 11:3).
Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants
yielding seed, and fruit trees on the
earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants
yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them,
after their kind; and God saw that it was good.
There was evening and
there was morning, a third day. (Genesis 1: 11-13)
On the 3rd day, God showed the author of Genesis how life
sprouted from primordial soil and sea beds.
The microscopic seeds of life God had planted blossomed into visible
fruit.
It
took a while, but it was worth it.
---Anderson
T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for
education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;
executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO); and director of rural leadership
development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting
his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button
on the right-hand sidebar.
Support by check or money order may be mailed
to
Miles Chapel CME Church
P O Box 132
Fairfield, Al 35064
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