Lent Day 3 – Out of Nothing

The grand Biblical narrative begins with God’s creative action. God makes. He’s both creative and creating. Simply put, God is an artist, builder and master craftsman. What does he make? He makes life, more life, teeming life, abundant life, flourishing life. He goes on with creating life, life and more life. Even the life he creates ends up creating more life. Isn’t that what I’m going for? Life! Isn’t that what we are all pursuing in the endless chasing of “more.” More life as we would like it. Life beyond just mere survival. Yet, there is a strange peculiarity in the story. God uses nothing to create! Before God created there was nothing.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the water” (Gen 1:1-2, NIV). The canvas of God’s creative force was blank, dark, nothingness. The Spirit (breath of God) hovered over a dark formless ocean of nothingness. The classical Christian belief in this event is called Ex Nihilo. Ex Nihilo is Latin for “out of nothing.” He used His Spirit (same word for breath) and Word (St. John’s intro for Jesus) to make all things.

Right before Jesus moves into 40 days of obscurity (all alone) in the land of oblivion (wilderness). St. Luke (4:1) tells us that, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness…” God is about to launch his re-creation project! He is looking to make everything new, to reconcile all things to back to himself. He was remaking a renewed man back into the original nature of Himself. Jesus tells us that he has come to give us life abundantly as John 10:10 tells us. He starts with an empty womb, an empty resume, an empty bank account and an empting experience in the wilderness. The crescendo of His new created life is revealed in an empty tomb. Out of nothing God re-creates us into people of life!

Today I am challenged to empty myself and leave behind all my self-importance, my electronic obsessions, my fantasy-making day dreams and enter into the blank canvas of God. To bring my formless, empty heart and soul before the God of all Creation and allow His Spirit and Word to build, make and create life in me. Life, Life and more Life! All out of my nothing! This is what it means to enter into the Kingdom, to be born again into a new kind of life and living.