God’s Good and Very Good

Long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 

2 Peter 3:5-6

We scramble on all fours, claiming the granite rock first with a hand and then a foot, breathing hard but steady. The sun is warm, the air is cool. We turn to see what has been left behind, to measure how far we have come. It is a majestic sight, set against blue sky mottled with small clouds. We watch for rocks worn smooth by hands and feet that have already ascended the path. Anna has declared dead things are not beautiful, I beg to differ as my own hand reaches for an ancient fallen sequoia, perfectly suited to steady my next reach upwards. Using each of our God granted senses, strung together with grit and determination, we discover the face, the face His hands created using water and His spoken word (2 Peter 3:5).

The written story of creation streams through my mind (Genesis 1, Job 38-41) as I am struck again and again by the wonder of it. How He created the surface as a face traced by mountain ranges below the sea and above the sea. How He must know every river, every brook, every crevice, as a momma knows the face of her child and as she knows the lines of her own aging reflection. Like the potter who once closed his eyes to the rhythm of the spinning clay, forming with his hands the soft elastic muck into beautiful, into purposeful, how He must know this land. His familiarity with this location not unlike that belonging to coordinates equally matched in wonder and beauty across the expanse of the entire planet.

And He set man upon the whole face of the earth.

The infinite imagination of the Creator forms the face with His word, He declares it as good. The crowning glory of His creation, humans, He declares as very good (Genesis 1:31).

If all of this majesty and beauty are good, and we are very good, where, oh where have we lost our way? When we look at the one who is other, do we see “very good”? As the stories stream through our tiny screens, downloading horrific details of one human atrocity after another, do we see “very good”? Hate runs deep through His very good, like the water that thunders down the mountain, shaping and reshaping the landscape below.

He spared us the full burden of our own sin, displacing it on the earth (Genesis 3:17) and on His son (1 Peter 2:24), to preserve His very good. Preserved His very good at the expense of His good. With all of my imagination I cannot see what it would be had creation not been forced to absorb the weight of the curse that belongs to me, to us. My finite imagination does not hold, and instead I am heartbroken.

In the midst of the majestic, there are wide expanses of burnt land, massive trees once evergreen, now poking tall as match sticks, blackened from flames. For miles, the groaning landscape is haunted by the alternating black and white figures, casting shadows in the evening sun. A face marked with the burden of our curse. A back that is striped full, marked with the burden of our curse. A man that hangs, head heavy and silent, crowned with the burden of our curse.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

Romans 8:19-22

Our response to our pockmarked planet is to legislate, ban the drinking straw, halt the cattle farmers, turn off the pipelines, convert the automobile lines, close the mines. Make a statement. Create an us versus them, project fault to an other. There are alignments to be made, money to exchange, pockets to fill with alloys of little worth. Excuse no one’s behavior but our own, because maybe we want to take our icy Coke through a straw, and not a paper one. Pick a side. The good is breaking, cracking through to the core under the weight of the curse which belongs to the very good.

Who would like to consider the hearts of the very good? What runs through those cracks? What flows through the deepest troughs of our hearts, marking our faces, revealing what lies beneath (Matthew 15:18-19)?

There will be a new heaven and a new earth. This has been stated and what is stated will come to pass. Like the Son who rose new, clothed in a heavenly body, the earth will rise new, granted a new face, free from the cursed marks. A face no longer scarred by the burden of the curse that belongs to the very good. The Creator will have His creation, His good and His very good. The wolf shall graze with the lamb, the lion will eat straw like the ox, and none will be hurt or destroyed on His holy mountain (Isaiah 65:25). His holy mountain, where His very good will be His gladness (Isaiah 65:18-19).

His very good will be His gladness.

We make it to the top, together. Pausing as we go to rest and to take in long drinks of cool water, waiting on each other, encouraging one another to reach our predetermined destination. The crowd of humans, once dense, over populating the path, now thinned by endurance required to finish. At the top, there is a deceivingly calm pool that gives way to the roaring waterfall below. Large expanses of granite, flat and smooth, heated by the sun, invite us to stay and soak in soothing warmth. From the heights, we gaze below at the wonder of the face from afar, the glory and beauty that changes as the light moves across the expanse of sky, giving us a hint of the magnificent mind of the Creator and what He stores in His more than we can ask or imagine. What it will be when His good and His very good are again what He intended, redeemed, restored and made new.

For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.

But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people.

ISAIAH 65:18-19