1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. – Genesis 1:1-2
If there was one thing that was drummed into me in my high school English class it was that the first line of any story is significant. In fact one of my friends who is an author once told me that he would at times re-write the first line of a piece of work a hundred times just to get it right. How interesting that the first line of our great story, the story of our loving Creator God and humanity, so often gets left unnoticed.
The very first line of our narrative in Genesis gives us a glimpse of the key players and what this story is all about. This is a story all about our incredible God. It’s a story that is primarily about Heaven and Earth and it’s a story that shows God in the person of the Holy Spirit who is on the move, bringing form into a place that is ‘formless’, light into a place of darkness and function to a place of non-function. And after He creates a garden of delight called ‘Eden’, God invites humanity to be on the move by joining him in this project of ‘Edenising’ the world, pushing Eden out by means of ‘ruling’, and ‘reigning’ (Gen 1:26-28).
Pentecost is the moment when God empowers a called people who have been engrafted into true Israel, Jesus Himself and once again these called people are on the move. The project is still in play with God still bringing light to darkness, ‘form’ to places of ‘formlessness’ and ‘function’ into places of ‘non-function’ and ‘dysfunction’.
And what is interesting is that God’s Modus of Operation is exactly the same as when He called Adam and Eve – The Church is invited to join Him in His project of renovating, restoring and renewing this world. Behold He is making all things new (Rev 21:5), He is not replacing old for new, (that’s what insurance companies promise), rather we are called to join Him as true Humanity, filled by the Spirit to see to it that God’s Kingdom reign breaks out into our world.
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