Seeing Creation

I love autumn.  During the long hot days of summer I start counting the days until fall arrives.  I enjoy the cooler temperatures that come this time of the year but I especially enjoy the show nature puts on during the autumn months.  I get excited when I start to see the foliage changing on trees.  I know what lies ahead and eagerly anticipate the time the leaves will “peak” and display their awesome palette of reds, oranges, yellows and burgundies.  After all, isn’t that what fall is all about?

If you happen to live in an area where there are plentiful deciduous trees you might be tempted to say “yes” but I hope you understand that when it comes to seeing Creation fall has far more to offer than just colorful leaves.  There is so much more to see and observe this time of the year.  Wildflowers may be more plentiful in the spring but fall also has its own delightful specimens.  My favorite are the asters but there are others to choose from.  During the autumn months you might notice birds you don’t typically see other times of the year as they migrate south.  If you look closely perhaps you will also notice changes in behavior and looks in various animal species.  Deer and elk, for example, experience the rut season during autumn and lose the velvet on their antlers.

During the autumn months the length of daylight diminishes significantly.  You may even notice that the sun now sets in a different direction than it did a couple of months ago.  An elder in my church has a home that sits on a hill overlooking the Ohio River.  Earlier this year he asked me to come to his house and take pictures from his porch of the sun setting on the first day of each season.  The first image I took was at the summer solstice.  When I took the autumn equinox picture I was amazed at how much to the south the sun now set.  I had not really paid that much attention before.

As we continue through the autumn season I encourage you to pay attention to all the changes you see happening around you.  Don’t focus on the obvious alone.  I often write about God’s two books on this site, the Bible and Creation, and would suggest that when we do focus only on the most obvious changes in nature it would be comparable to only reading the books of the Bible we like the most.  There are lots of wonderful passages in the Scripture that people rarely read or take notice of.  They miss out on a lot when they are selective with their reading.  In the same way we will miss out on learning what God has to teach us through His book of Creation if we just pay attention to the parts we like the most.  By all means enjoy the beautiful fall foliage this year but keep your eyes open to the other signs of autumn.  There’s much more beauty to behold and lessons to learn.

–Chuck

(I took the top image at Breaks Interstate Park, the whitetail buck at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the sunset on the Ohio River in Henderson, KY, and the asters at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.)

The Prologue to John’s Gospel (vs. 1-18) is an incredible passage of Scripture.  Last week I noted how John makes his claim here that Jesus (the “Word”) is one with God and is the Creator of all things: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”  (v. 3) In the next verse John follows this up by saying that Jesus is the source of all  life: “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”  As Leon Morris points out, “It is only because there is life in the Logos that there is life in anything on earth at all.  Life does not exist in its own right.  It is not even spoken of as made ‘by’ or ‘through’ the Word, but existing ‘in’ Him.”

For Christians it is important to understand that Jesus is the source of both Creation and life.  It is because of him that everything exists; it is because of him that everything has meaning.  I agree with what William Hull says in his commentary on the Fourth Gospel: “…every person ought to see that God is the powerful and thoughtful creator of the universe in the light of the miracle of life which abounds in human experience.” 

If we understood Christ to be the source of all life perhaps we would have a greater respect for life—all of it.   Furthermore, understanding that life is not a given but a gift, perhaps we would also have a greater appreciation for life—all of it. 

It is because I believe that Jesus is the source of all life I affirm that all creatures and plant species are important.  Christ’s desire was for them to have life, just as it was his desire for us to have life.  It is also because I believe that Jesus is the source of all life that I feel a kinship with the rest of Creation—I share a common Maker with them and, like them, owe my very existence to him.  It is this kinship with the rest of Creation that led Francis of Assisi to refer to various animals as his “brothers and sisters.”

Today I join with the author of the Fourth Gospel in offering praise to Christ for being my Maker and the Source of all life.  I encourage you to join in with us.

–Chuck

(Both the whitetail deer and aster images were taken earlier this month in West Virginia.)