Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Previous posts in this series: 1, 2, 3,

So far we have talked about the creation as a beginning of God’s gracious work (1).  We have noted the desolation into which the creation story was told proclaiming a God who calls forth a good and gracious world from just such desolation (2).  And we have noted that the creation without violence is God’s ongoing and promised work (3).  Now we need to note that when God creates the sun, moon, and stars he gives them no names. 

Genesis 1:14-18

14And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

To the ancients, the lights of the sky were creatures of the air, beings of light.  Just as there are creatures of the deep and creatures of the land, the ancients inferred that there were creatures of the air.  For the ancients these were divine beings who could affect affairs on earth. They were gods.  Or angels.  Or spirits that could work blessing or woe.  

Among the many warnings about the worship of other gods Deuteronomy 4:19 has Moses warn the people, saying:

“And when you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven.”

And Jeremiah bitterly attacks the idolatry of his age, as folly led the country and destruction by Babylon lurked on the horizon, declaring:

“At that time, says the LORD, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs; 2and they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have followed, and which they have inquired of and worshiped; and they shall not be gathered or buried; they shall be like dung on the surface of the ground.” Jeremiah 8:1-2

The words for sun and moon are the names of divinities, so our author names them not.  They are a “greater light” and a “lesser light”.  Oh, and there are stars also.  In the face of a plethora of other gods, our biblical authors simply dismiss them all.  Those things in the sky are lights.  They mark the seasons.  They are not gods.  They have no power.  They cannot bless or curse.  

It’s a daring argument in a world that regarded them as great powers.  After the destruction of Jerusalem, those who fled to Egypt declared to Jeremiah that it was their neglect of the queen of heaven that brought destruction upon them. 

16“As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we are not going to listen to you. 17Instead, we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out libations to her, just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. We used to have plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no misfortune. 18But from the time we stopped making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything and have perished by the sword and by famine.” Jeremiah 44:16-18

But among the exiles in Babylon are those who gathered the stories and compiled the bulk of the text that comes to us in the Hebrew Bible.  In their narrative, and in the prophetic preaching, they declare that the gods people worshipped and feared are not gods at all.  The sun, moon, and stars are just lights in the sky.

It’s hard for us to recognize the power of such a message.  Jerusalem did not fall because the gods of Babylon were more powerful than the LORD.  The nation was not destroyed because they offended the queen of heaven.  Disaster fell because they turned away from the world of God’s creating.  They turned away from God’s vision, purpose and promise of a world of mercy and justice.  They ignored the commands to care for the poor and chose, instead, the gods of prosperity and power.  

But God is not done creating.

And it is the story written in Babylon that endures.

Breath of Life, 
Font of Hope,
Only God,
 be our vision and life.

+       +       +

Photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lake_Ninan.jpg, Madhav Rajesh, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
© David K Bonde, 2021, All rights reserved