Creation Sunday – Created with wisdom
Readings: Proverbs 8. 1, 22-31 & John 1. 1-14
Have you ever pondered the miracle that the universe is comprehensible? That it has laws that govern it, that it obeys tirelessly, the laws of physics, the workings of chemistry and biology. And on top of that that we have minds that are capable of thinking about the universe in this big picture way, that we are able to discern and calculate these laws and rules which govern our universe.
It’s mind blowing when you really think about it. And you could argue that the universe wouldn’t have worked without these laws, and so it just kept attempting to form until it was successful. Or you could argue that a universe could exist which wasn’t comprehendible and without people to discern it, but we don’t live in that universe.
But when we turn to the book of Proverbs in our Bible’s, which sits near the middle alongside books like Psalms and Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, we find a different answer. God didn’t throw out a universe on a whim, didn’t come up with a half baked plan one afternoon and quickly implemented it. No he created it with Wisdom. God created our universe with wisdom, from the butterfly to the blue whale, from the atom to the supernova, God created all things with wisdom. And wisdom here in Proverb is personified as being alongside God, like a master worker, rejoicing in creation, there as the world was formed and the seas limits set.
For Christians in the beginning, if we wind the clock right back, all the way to the start we find God yes, but alongside him we don’t find iron laws of nature, or immense power, we find wisdom. When we say that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that God delights in us, that he delights in our universe it’s because he cares about it, cares about us, he’s thought carefully about everything, made everything just so. He’s made it so that there’s an order to it, given rules and laws by which it works. He’s made us so that we can understand and discern its pattern, that we might rejoice with him in the created world.
But at the same time there’s something seriously wrong with our world isn’t there, something seriously wrong with our Universe. I’ve recently been listening to a sermon series by Tim Keller on the book of Proverbs and he talks about how the book of Proverbs outlines how things should work in our world. You work hard, you’re rewarded, you’re lazy you go hungry. You remain faithful to your spouse all will go well for you, if you aren’t it won’t. Like those other laws we see in the universe, E=MC^2, the speed of light being the speed limit on the universe, the forces at work in the atom, like all of those things are fixed, the book of Proverbs suggests that such thing are true of wider life, that there’s an order and a wisdom to everything. But, as Keller points out, that isn’t always how things work, you can work really hard and still go hungry because people rip you off or exploit you. You’re faithful to your spouse but still you lose your house and job and family.
We want the universe to work like it does in the book of Proverbs, it would be so much better, and in many ways it’s meant to work like Proverbs outlines, but something is broken, something is wrong. Whilst God has ordered all things with wisdom, we break things. In our sin and selfishness we don’t follow in his ways, and so the universe doesn’t work the way it should. So what are we to do? Should we throw our hands up in the air and decide that it’s all hopeless and we should just do the best we can? It’s a dog eat dog world so we must become like that.
Well lets turn to our Gospel reading, to John 1, it may be helpful to have your Bibles open to both Proverbs 8 and John 1 for this. What do we read in John’s prologue, ‘In the beginning was the Word…he was in the beginning with God…all things came into being through him’. Flip back to Proverbs 8. 22 ‘Ages ago I was set up, before the beginning of the earth…when he established the heavens I was there…I was there beside him like a master worker; and I was daily his delight’. Can you see the parallels? How they mirror one another? They’re talking about the same person aren’t they. The descriptions are so similar. Moreover the Greek word we translate as Word is Logos, it’s where we get our word logic from. In the beginning was the logic, or wisdom. Both passages are talking about God the Son, about Jesus.
You see whilst in some ways the personification of wisdom is a rhetorical device in Proverbs 8, it is pointing to something greater, a shadow of the coming Christ. We don’t need to get too bogged down in the fine details of Proverbs 8, such as the description of Wisdom as being created. Proverbs is using poetic language, it doesn’t force us to say that God the Son is a created being, the rest of Scripture witnesses that this isn’t the case. As I say this is a shadow of the coming Christ, not the full revelation.
If you need more convincing that they’re talking about the same person Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians calls Jesus both ‘the power of God and the wisdom of God’. Jesus, God the Son, is the wisdom of God, the one in whom the Father delights, who in turn delights in us, he is the one through whom all things were created.
And what that means for us isn’t that in order to understand how to live in this world we need more knowledge, need to update Proverbs for how things really work, no, we need to know Jesus. If we want to live well in our lives, live well on this earth, delight in creation, we need to know Jesus. We need to get to know the one who is God’s wisdom himself.
In 321 on Monday we were talking about how for Christians we see all things through Jesus. It’s like we place Jesus on as sort of spectacles and look at everything else though him. How do we do that? It sounds rather odd, Jesus isn’t see through, we can’t look through him. What it means is getting to know him through the pages of Scripture, both Old & New Testaments, getting to know God’s revelation to us, and using that to look at our world. Once we start seeing all things through the message of the Gospel and the person of Jesus things start to make more sense.
Why is the world a mess? Well we find that it’s because of sin and human selfishness, why do bad people get away with things, why do good people suffer, well we discover that things won’t always be this way, that on the last day true justice will be done. Why do we long for meaning and purpose? Because God has imbued us with meaning and purpose, he has given it to us as we seek to serve him.
And as we start to look at all things through Jesus we start to understand the bigger picture of our redemption, of God the Son come to save us. We start to see that becoming a Christian isn’t so that we are saved out of the world, isn’t that one day, when we die, we’ll get to leave creation behind and go and enjoy heaven.
No, it’s that God in his wisdom, is creating a new creation, as we are raised into everlasting life all of creation is ransomed and redeemed with us. We’re not saved from the created order, we’re saved for the created order, saved so that it can be restored and renewed with us.
Which means when Christ shall come again and all things are made new God’s perfect wisdom will prevail, at last all shall work as it is meant to. At last Wisdom will win out and all that impedes it shall pass away. At last we shall rejoice in God’s presence in a new and perfect world, the world as it was always intended. The old order of things sin and folly having gone forever, and the new of joy and peace has come.
My brothers and sisters, God has created the universe with wisdom, and the wisdom of God is Jesus Christ. If we want to know how to live well on earth, live well in this creation, we don’t so much need more knowledge, we need to know Jesus. And if we know Jesus we will be ready and prepared to live well in the new creation. For God in his love is committed to us and to the created order. Whilst wisdom may seem folly now, a day is coming when it will prevail and we and all creation will join in singing his praise.
Amen.