From Dust
I loved when the TV show Unwrapped was on the Food Network. Tell me more about how chips, cereal, and every candy is made!
Six months before Unwrapped aired, a similar show started on the Discover Channel for food and more - How It’s Made. It must be that engineering mind of mine that loves to watch this stuff. In a show hole? Turn How It’s Made on YouTube.
Do I need to know how rope is made - not really. But have I watched that episode - you bet!
Of my many questions to ask God when I get to Heaven, there are a few that I think are almost universal:
How did you form the Earth?
When it says 6 days - were days 24 hours or millions of years?
(insert other questions about Creation here)
The desire to understand the Creation story seems to be something that is desired even beyond Christianity. But if we look at our questions from that perspective, generally speaking, I think we want to understand the Genesis 1:1-25 “stuff.” When we hit verse 26 we read:
Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”
So God created human beings in his own image.
In the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”
– Genesis 1:26-28
Why I don’t think we need the same amount of clarity when it comes to the creation of humanity is because it is outlined (mostly) in these verses:
We were created to be image bearers of the Trinity
We were created to have authority over the earth
And when we combine the above, we see we have the responsibility to Earth to care for it in the way the Trinity cares for us
God clarifies the creation of humanity more in Genesis 2. He not only says that He created us after Himself, but that He actually created man (who we know as Adam) from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7).
If this was a How It’s Made episode here is how the host would explain the steps:
God creates the earth and see it needs someone to rule over it
God decides man is the perfect creation for it
Together the Trinity create (or image or brainstorm - not sure on the Divine vocabulary word here) the “image bearer”
God creates that image from the dust of the very earth He created
The role of man is to not only have authority over the earth but to care for it in the way the Trinity cares for man
Let me tell you, I don’t think I’m a big fan of the fact that I’m just made of dirt. If it was fertilized dirt - that means I’m made of crap. I mean, that’s not great imagery.
But you know how God is faithful and His Word is Good?
Mix water with dust and you form mud. Mix it in the right proportions in the right environment - you form clay. [If you read the last blog, you know where this is going].
Clay can have many purposes, but think about a Potter at His wheel with the clay in His hands. He pushes and pulls, molds and refines - He makes art.
We are that vessel (Isaiah 64:8).
The vessel can take on many shapes. It can reach many stages of its journey (to the kiln, glazed, into use, etc.).
What does that vessel look like when we sin? Ask Adam and Eve what God says happens.
And to the man he said,
“Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree
whose fruit I commanded you not to eat,
the ground is cursed because of you.
All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it.
It will grow thorns and thistles for you,
though you will eat of its grains.By the sweat of your brow
will you have food to eat
until you return to the ground
from which you were made.
For you were made from dust,
and to dust you will return.”— Genesis 3:17-19 (emphasis mine)
God tells them - because of your sin, you’ll return to the very dust you were formed from.
When we sin, that vessel (no matter the stage) crashes onto the concrete floor and shatters. It becomes potsherds, dust, grog.
We know the Story doesn’t end in Genesis 3. That’s why we commit to the quiet reflections of Lent. Because we know Jesus took the potsherds of us caused by our sin and He mixes it with good clay and Living Water. The grog of our past becomes strengthened clay ready for reforming.
From dust you were made, but you don’t have to return to the dust of this earth if you know the Master Potter.
