Sermon: Created to Behold

Scripture Text: Genesis 1:1-2:3

Quotes for Reflection

Makoto Fujimura, Art and Faith: A Theology of Making
God the Artist communicates to us first, before God the lecturer.

Gordon J. Wenham, Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story
The garden of Eden is not viewed by the author of Genesis simply as a piece of Mesopotamian farmland, but as an archetypal sanctuary, that is a place where God dwells and where man should worship him. Many of the features of the garden may also be found in later sanctuaries particularly the tabernacle or Jerusalem temple. These parallels suggest that the garden itself is understood as a sort of sanctuary.

Elisa Yukiko Weichbrodt, Redeeming Vision: A Christian Guide to Looking At and Learning from Art
The Bible begins with God making a place, the garden of Eden, and it ends with a description of him restoring creation as the new heavens and the new earth. The creation mandate, God’s command to humankind in Genesis 1:28, is to “be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.” The fall, however, breaks Adam and Eve’s relationship not just with God but with their own selves, each other, and the created world. The rest of the Old Testament is the story of a people looking for a “place.” They are displaced as slaves in Egypt and then wander in the wilderness. They gain and then lose their place in the promised land. Jesus, though, shows us that God’s good news is neither a single plot of land nor disembodied salvation for individual souls. In the incarnation, Christ affirms the importance of the particular.

Application Questions

1. What sort of beauty strikes and transforms you? Why does this particular type of beauty have this effect?

2. Fujimura writes, “God the Artist communicates to us first, before God the lecturer.” How does that influence your view of faith?

3. If the sanctuary is designed for beholding, how does that change your view of worship in the church?