Love Came Down at Creation

Today I continued in Genesis with the story of Noah. I have been noticing the repetition of the phrase, "So and so walked with God."

It is first said of Enoch: "Enoch walked with God." 

Then it is said of Noah: "Noah walked with God." 

When I read those verses, I thought of Genesis 3:8, when Adam and Eve heard the "sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the cool of the day." Rather than going out to join God, they "hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden."

This is one of the very first pictures of God's relationship to humankind, one from before the fall, so it calls for some close attention. It is common to think of God as the watchmaker who got everything going but then withdrew to a distance to see how this "earth project" of his would play out. That is not the picture given in the Bible! God is already, here in the first chapter of the Bible, coming down to earth to be with his people. Coming to walk in the garden with Adam and Eve is a sign of friendship between God and humanity. I find confirmation of God's desire to be friends with humankind in a phrase that is repeated over and over in the Bible: "They will be my people, and I will be their God" (Exodus 6:7, Jeremiah 31:33, Revelation 21:3 to name a few). As the story of Adam and Eve shows, that relationship gets mightily complicated by the introduction of sin into the world, and humans begin to turn away from God's presence, but the bottom line is that God desires relationship with humanity and is willing to go to the greatest of lengths to restore that relationship. The whole story of the Bible is about just how far God will go to win humanity back to himself.

In this Christmas season (we still have one more day!), when we focus on Christ's coming to earth, I am now reminded that God has been coming to earth since the beginning. Christina Rossetti wrote that "Love came down at Christmas" - and Love came down at Creation as well.

P.S. I learned about how "friendship" defines our relationship with God through the book God's Companions, by Sam Wells, in which he describes how "God gives his people everything they need to worship him, be his friends, and eat with him." I recommend it.

Reading God's Story gives a few pages of reading a day - so far only 2 or 3 pages. It's very doable! I am on page 12 as of today. If you're interested in reading the Bible this year, consider buying a copy of RGS - it's available on Amazon in print or as an e-book.