Hope within Creation: Wednesday

Wednesday March 10, 2021

Created by Moriah Reichert

Genesis 1:5,10 (NRSV)

5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

Devotion

Too often we are presented with the creation narrative in Genesis 1 to reinforce a binary nature of the world. At first glance, these two verses seem to affirm God ordained opposites; however, if we take a moment to sit with them and return to the nature whose creation they describe, perhaps there is more to the verses than easy binaries.

For it is precisely the liminal spaces between these binaries that captivate us. Of course there is day and night, but it is dawn and dusk when we look up, reaching for our phones to capture the colors painting the sky. We love sea and land, yet it is beaches to which we flock, wandering the blurred edge between land and water. Those spaces in between — liminal, both/and places — restore our hope and are beacons of holiness. These holy liminal spaces, beach and dawn and dusk, are held by Genesis 1, even if not in plain sight. We are reminded daily in the rising and setting sun that there is something more than easy opposites. We are guided by those who embrace life in the holy space between and beyond many binaries. Martin Luther would remind us that we are each sinner and saint all the time, in every moment: we are the dawn and beaches. As we stand in the light of the setting sun, may we hear the Word of God proclaiming the day, night, and every moment in-between good as hope for our own encounters with the holy liminal this Lent.

Prayer

Good and gracious God, help us to find hope in this weary season. Amen.