While there are many unfinished drafts I've accumulated over the last year and a half, I've opted to begin a blog series that is really just a recreation of something I wrote for a bulletin series and am now using for Confirmation as well.
God is revealed to us in a very general way through the creation: we see God's handiwork everywhere. God is also revealing himself to us in a very specific way, and that is through His Word. Yes, there are many purported writings claiming to be God's Word out there, and often very contradictory of one another. It is my intention to demonstrate not only what God has been up to throughout human history, but also what makes Christianity unique and thus the correct path, when compared to every other religion on the face of the earth. Two things set it apart. One: Christianity is the only religion which identifies humanity as incapable of its' own eternal salvation, and therefore God effects salvation on our behalf. Two: Christianity is the only religion that, as a rule, calls people to be willing to die for their faith. The majority of other religions call for people to kill for their faith. Yes there are exceptions on both sides, but for the Christian, there is no room for random, wanton killing for the sake of faith in light of the teachings of Jesus.
So now, what will follow are a series of summations to demonstrate how the Bible is God's Drama, but it's our story. Part One: The Genesis...
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Six times we are told about creation, “it was good.” So when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, did God make a mistake? No. Everything is unfolding according to God’s plan. Does the account of creation explain to us “how” God does things? No, except that we see the sheer power of God’s Word: All God must do to create out of nothing is to speak. And it was good. And we begin to understand the nature of our creator from the beginning.
Satan under the guise of a serpent (literally meaning “one who deceives”) tricks Eve by telling her that she will become like God, knowing good and evil (Genesis Ch. 3). She gives some to Adam too, and instead of becoming like God, they become ashamed. God administers punishment for violating his law: banishment from Eden forever. And yet in all of it, God provides clothes for them, showing that there is grace, even in the midst of judgement by God.
What follows is a repeating pattern of human sin/God’s judgement/God’s grace. Cain kills Abel over a feud on who’s offering was better (Genesis 4), God banishes Cain from the human community forever, but protects his life with the “mark of Cain.” Soon we see a bizarre account of how sin has even entered into the heavenly realm with “angels” mating with humans. God’s judgement is swift and final: destroy the earth by flood (Genesis 6-9), but God’s grace prevails again with a remnant preserved through Noah and the Ark. Yet again, humanity tries to become like God as the human race builds a tower in a vain effort to take heaven by storm (Genesis 10-12), and God confuses their language and scatters them all across the known world.
Where’s the grace in that, you might ask? Well, it comes in God’s focus, which is now centered on one man: Abraham (Genesis 12-15). As God slowly reveals himself to humanity (his creation), now God has approached Abraham and established a promise of 4 things with him: He gets to have God as his God, He will receive the land of Canaan (present day Israel) to live in (an ongoing source of political strife), He will have so many offspring and descendants as to become a great nation (the Hebrew people), and through his descendants, ALL nations will be blessed.
Who is this descendant, you might ask? Well, St. Matthew goes to great lengths to inform us that Jesus is indeed an ancestor of Abraham. So our story as it unfolds even at the beginning ultimately leads through Jesus!
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