Our Sunday morning service at Clevedon is at 10 am. Join us in person or watch the live stream on our YouTube channel.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxBzxjBb3xU8ra2NHwvD_9A(The service can also be viewed at any time afterwards.)

Today's Reading and Reflection can be found below:

1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, ² the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God^[b] swept over the face of the waters. ³ Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. ⁴ And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

⁶ And God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ ⁷ So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. ⁸ God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

⁹ And God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. ¹¹ Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.’ And it was so. ¹² The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

¹⁴ And 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, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so. ¹⁶ God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸ to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

²⁰ And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.’ ²¹ So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ ²³ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

²⁴ And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.’ And it was so. ²⁵ God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶ Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth,^[d] and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’

²⁷ So God created humankind in his image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

²⁸ God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ 

²⁹ God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. ³⁰ And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. ³¹ God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. ² And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. ³ So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

⁴ These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

I wonder if we all have our stories?

As people living in this part of Auckland, we have perhaps all, at different times, talked about orange road cones, temporary traffic lights, potholes and of course, the weather.

Then, there are our personal stories.

If you know someone well, or have spent a lot of time with them, you might have heard them tell the same story more than once. You might even know which topic will trigger certain stories. Boats, fishing, travel, jobs. You might love someone, but still think, “Oh no, we’re going to hear that story again.”

But then there are the bigger stories. The stories that define a nation, a people, or a group. I’m not sure New Zealand has a single national story, but perhaps we come close when we gather around events like ANZAC Day or Waitangi Day.

This morning, we are hearing the biggest story—the story of creation. A story of common origin and common identity.

I want to talk about some of the aspects of this story that make it so important for our faith and identity.

The Genesis story is about worship, proclamation, and faith. It’s about giving expression to the things that matter most in our lives.

This story even has a rhythm that draws us in:

The rhythm tells us that this ancient story comes from an even older oral tradition, passed down through generations.

It’s not just the rhythm that makes this story special—it’s the style.

In Genesis, there are words used exclusively to describe what God does. One of these words is bara, which means "to create." Barashith bara Elohim—in the beginning, God creates.

But God doesn’t just create once and leave the rest to chance. God is always in the process of creating, shaping, and renewing.

God creates from tohu wa bohu—a Hebrew term often translated as "formless void" or "chaos."

A violent wind intensifies the sense of chaos, creating an atmosphere of bewilderment and astonishment.

It’s as if the world itself is in a state of disorientation, and yet, this is the substance from which God begins creation.

Here’s the great affirmation: God creates in the midst of nothingness, where there is no dry land, no firm foundation. No purpose.

How often do we, as people, find ourselves in those places? And yet, God creates—when everything seems destroyed, when we’re overwhelmed, bewildered, and astonished by the foreign places we’ve found ourselves in, asking, "How did I get here?" or, as we read in the

Psalms, “how do we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”

Jesus on the cross. Speaking those words of abandonment. The darkness falling across the land. The ‘tohu wa bohu’ beginning to take over.

And yet, in the midst of this, in our Christian story, there is resurrection. That’s how God works.

The Genesis creation story is full of mystery, rhythm, and music.

Scholars think that this story was finally written down after centuries of being part of an oral tradition, when the ancient Hebrews found themselves defeated and in captivity.

What I find especially fascinating is that the Israelites, exiled in Babylon, were surrounded by images of this foreign nation's power—its military might, its grand buildings, and its complex financial systems. They were also surrounded by images of the gods worshipped by the Babylonians, gods believed to be responsible for all this power and wealth.

Yet Israel resisted making images of God. They affirmed that the true manifestation of God's glory wasn’t in statues or idols, but in the creatures God created—in human beings, man and woman, created in God’s image.

This brings us to something extraordinary about the Genesis creation story. It’s a story that challenges us, even today, to believe in its fundamental affirmation.

The story tells us that God created the world, not through conflict, but through intentional, peaceful action.

Other ancient cultures had similar stories to Genesis, but their accounts of creation were often born out of conflict—divine battles between gods fighting for supremacy.

In Zoroastrianism, for example, Ahura Mazda battles the evil Druj to create the world, and the natural order continues through conflict, victory, and defeat.

In Genesis, we hear of one God—just one, a sovereign of the universe. There is no cosmic battle. There is only the Spirit of God, moving over the waters. God’s Spirit hovers over the chaos, and then God speaks.

Creation begins with a word, a deliberate command, lifting the world from the chaos, the bewilderment.

After each day of creation, God sees that it is good. Again and again, the refrain echoes: "It is good."

We might be tempted to think that chaos is evil, but Genesis doesn’t assign chaos any moral character. It’s not evil; it’s just formless, a void, a state of pointlessness.

What undermines creation is not evil itself because we can name evil. We can call it out, we can fight it, we can even launch missiles at it. But what truly undermines creation is meaninglessness—the formless void, the chaos, the things that have no name, the threat of the unnameable.

This is the undifferentiated matter from which God lifts us, holding us above the chaos. It’s the things we can’t name that trouble us most.

Do we hear echoes from the affirmation in Philippians ?  - that love doesn’t overcome hate, but overcomes fear.

I think when we look at the acts of terror happening in the world—we know the lists—these acts are not just evil. They trouble our souls, burden our spirits, and undermine the loving, creative people God made us to be. They don’t make sense. They are incomprehensible.

And I think many of us know what it feels like to be in that primordial chaos, where we have no words.

The betrayal by someone we love, the loss of someone dear to us, the news of illness, or the helplessness we feel when our children are suffering—these moments leave us speechless, lost in the formless void.

As a minister, how many times have I prayed, "God, give me the words," because it is hard to know what to say when visiting a family in shock after a tragedy.

No words can make it right or explain what has happened. 

When the order and reality of our created world are betrayed—when the veil between creation and chaos is pulled back, and the waters surge forth, sweeping away everything—the tohu wa bohu begins to take over. Life is choked from every living thing.

At our best, as individuals and as the Church, we are challenged to work with God, to be the good people God created us to be.

We are called to be people of new creation, agents of grace, creators of new and hope-filled realities.

We follow Jesus, the one who endured the cross, he knows what it's like to bear the horror of suffering and utter loneliness.

And yet out of that, as resurrection people, Jesus makes possible the hope that we can be part of the new creation.

As Paul said to the people of Corinth, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

There is also mystery in this passage. There are a lot of things we can't explain. We can’t fully explain what it means to have faith and trust in a sovereign God, just like we can’t fully explain awe, wonder, or love.

But listen to how the ancients expressed their faith in God’s sovereignty and divine purposes in Psalm 46:

Amen.