JESUS CREATIVE WORK UNDERLIES ALL CREATIVITY AND PRODUCTION Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. Psalm 127:1 The deep mystery of the Trinity, particularly the relationship between God the Father and Jesus the Son, is plumbed in the opening verses of John’s Gospel. Jesus is the “Word,” and we are told that not only was He present in the beginning, He was an active participant in creation. “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (v. 3). As one commentator explains, “The work God did in Genesis 1 and 2 was performed by the Word. This may seem too fine a point to press, but many Christians continue to labor under the delusion that the Messiah only began working once things had gone irredeemably wrong, and that his work is restricted to saving (invisible) souls to bring them to (immaterial) heaven. Once we recognize that the Messiah was working materially with God from the beginning, we can reject every creation-denying (and thus work-denigrating) theology.” The Gospel of John often uses dichotomies—dark/light, doubt/faith, spirit/flesh—to underscore the radical juxtaposition of God’s ways against the world’s ways. Some people have argued that this rhetorical device means that God is calling people away from creation and into an immaterial spiritual realm. But the opposite is true. John 3:17 says, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” Jesus did not come to relieve us from the world and its toil but to transform the world through the redemption of work, to return labor to its original nature as a source of human flourishing. Because Jesus’ work began in the beginning, all subsequent human labor is derived from His initial labor. Everything people work with—from minds and hands and backs to paint and soil and paper—was created by Him and is a gift from Him. Apply the Word What tools have you been gifted that make your work possible? If you had to hire someone to do your job—raising children, managing a team of professionals, reading electric meters—how would you describe the skills and characteristics necessary for a successful applicant? Do an inventory of the tools you’ve been given with which you work.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 09:46:06 +0000
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