Beginnings

Ever since I first learned to read Genesis in Hebrew, the third verse of chapter one leaps out at me. In our English translation we read, “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” In the original Hebrew, “let there be light” and “there was light” are exactly the same letters. In other words, God’s speech is God’s action. “Light!” is actual light. If we consider that God’s speech is that same Word who became incarnate as Jesus Christ, we see how the evangelist John could say that through this Word all things were created. Not only that, but the “wind” from God sweeping over the face of the waters at creation can also be translated “spirit.” Here, right at the very beginning of everything, the Trinity is already present.

Sunday’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles presents another activity of the Holy Spirit. In Ephesus, the apostle Paul runs into some believers who had been baptized, but in the tradition of John the Baptist. Paul knew that John had pointed beyond himself to Jesus, but these disciples had not caught that movement. They had repented of their sins, but that was it. So when Paul (re?) baptized them in the name of Jesus and laid his hands on them, “the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.”

My clergy text study group got so hung up on the reference to speaking in tongues that they couldn’t move on. It didn’t much bother me. I had to acknowledge long ago that there are elements of faith that are beyond understanding, and manifestations of the Spirit that cannot be explained rationally. It’s a mistake to limit God to what we can explain, just as it is a mistake to pick any one manifestation of the Spirit and make it a test of true faith (as Pentecostals do with speaking in tongues).

Mark’s Gospel gives us the context for Genesis and Acts. John the Baptizer appears in the wilderness, wild-eyed and hairy, with locust legs hanging out of his mouth. No wonder the whole countryside turned out to see him! Already he is pointing toward the one coming after him, the one who is more powerful, who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. Sure enough, Jesus himself shows up to be baptized by this wild man. As Jesus comes up out of the River Jordan, the heavens split open and the Spirit comes down on him “like a dove.” Then a voice speaks from the rip in heaven: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Once again, as at creation, the Trinity is there. This time Word has become flesh, however, so there is Word on earth and Word with God, and Spirit moving between God and Word, between heaven and earth. God’s speech is now incarnate in human form. When Jesus speaks, things happen; when Jesus touches, the blind see and the lame walk. And the Holy Spirit? From a wild wind sweeping over dark waters, to the power of tongues and prophecy, it has become a tame dove. It makes me wonder if the Spirit, too, had to be emptied like the Word at the Incarnation.

God’s speech, God’s creative activity, came and dwelled with us. God still comes to us through Jesus Christ every time we hear the Word, every time we eat bread and wine at the Eucharist. That same Word that created light now brings us light. It breaks open the heavens so that we, too, can hear that voice: “You are my beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

[Epiphany 1, the Baptism of our Lord: Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11.]