This week, we continue our look at God's creation by considering the skies. We think about the role of the skies and heavens as a part of creation and throughout the Bible. We also consider an apocalyptic vision from Jeremiah that feels right at home in any number of post-apocalyptic stories in our modern world (see Jeremiah 4:23-28).
Some of you may recall our reading from Genesis from the beginning of the month, or perhaps you simply remember the poetic creation story there from other times. According to the first chapter of Genesis, God creates the sky on the second day. God makes a dome to separate the waters of the earth from the waters above the earth. Depending on your Bible translation, God calls the dome the sky or the heavens.
After creating the sky, the next few days of creation see God placing the sun, moon, and stars in the sky to offer us light and to mark the passing of time. The sun marks the passing of one day to the next while the phases of the moon mark the passage of months. The position of the stars in the night sky helps us mark the passage of the year as they slowly move across the sky, returning to the same point year after year.
As God fills the world with animal life, God creates the birds to fly through the dome of the sky. The birds live in trees and flap and glide through the space that God has made above us. There is something serene, perhaps even joyful, about the way that birds move through the air. It is easy for us to imagine that there are times they fly simply for the sake of flying, feeling the air ruffle their feathers.
Though we think of God’s dwelling place as the heavens, it is interesting to note that it is not here in the first telling of creation in Genesis that we are told this. The assumption that God dwells in the heavens does show up rather quickly in the Hebrew scriptures. And perhaps it can be assumed from the first chapter of Genesis. If we are here on the earth with the sky separating us from the heavens and God is outside looking in, it makes sense that we would see God dwelling in the heavens.
Because we humans have long believed that God dwells in the heavens above and because God places a dome over the earth to separate the waters below from the waters above, we also sometimes see this as the separation of God from the people since God resides in the heavens above the dome of the sky while we mortals live here on the earth under the sky. This idea that the sky separates us from big ‘H’ Heaven actually plays into other stories later in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. What is the implication of assuming we are separated from the realm of the holy? How does it affect our relationship with God to think that God is “up there” somewhere, out of reach?
As we continue reading through our Bible stories, we find that the Hebrew people really lived into this idea of the separation of humans from God in the heavens. Moses ascends the mountain to be closer to God. When the Hebrews built first the tabernacle and then the temple in Jerusalem as the dwelling place of God, they erected a curtain to keep us separated, something that could easily be interpreted as representing the sky that separates us from heaven.
As we continue reading, we find that the prophets in particular speak of the heavens opening, granting them visions of God and God’s will. Ezekiel tells us that the heavens opened and he saw visions. Isaiah woefully calls on God to tear open the heavens and come down.
And then we come to the stories of Jesus. At his baptism, the gospel writers all speak of the heavens opening up as Jesus is baptized. The Gospel of Mark, alluding to Isaiah's lament, even suggests that the heavens are “torn open,” suggesting that the barriers between humanity and God are not merely being pulled aside but being removed altogether. Later, Jesus goes to a high place where there is again a voice from the heavens. And at his crucifixion, the veil or curtain in the temple that separated the people from the dwelling place of God was torn apart.
I think what these stories of Jesus make clear is that we were never meant to be separated from God. Or, perhaps if we once were, God has torn apart those things that once separated us. We are called to be in relationship with God, not separated. God’s creation is something that is good and pleasing. It is not meant to keep us apart. And each part of God’s creation is good and pleasing and meant to work together.
When we think about the elements of the skies, we can recognize how important they are to our survival and the well-being of the rest of the planet. The sun warms our planet and gives us light, making life possible. The air that fills the skies contains the elements we need to breathe, air that is constantly cycled through the plants that breathe in what we breathe out and the humans and other animals that breathe in what the plants give off in turn. Water cycles through the sky, bringing rain to places far from the rivers, lakes, and oceans.
All of these aspects of the skies are important for our life here on this planet. As we consider this, it makes the vision that Jeremiah has so much more devastating. Jeremiah’s vision is one that reverses creation, an earth “without shape or form” and heavens devoid of light (Jeremiah 4:23). Every bird in the sky has fled (Jeremiah 4:25). The earth is desolate and the heavens are full of darkness.
What happened to the goodness of creation?
According to Jeremiah, this is God’s word. In anger, God will make the earth desolate but not destroy it completely. But when we think about Biblical prophecy we must always remember two things. First, prophecies such as this are almost always written after a calamity has struck as a way of making sense of what has already happened. In this case, Jeremiah is writing about an invasion of an army from the north. In essence, we are seeing his reflection on the growing power of and eventual invasion by the Babylonians, an act that he attributes to God’s displeasure with the Hebrew people.
Second, prophecies such as this are almost always grounded in recognizing where present circumstances will lead us in the future if they remain unchanged. Recognizing the weakness of Judah and Jerusalem due to their inability to work together for the common good, Jeremiah sees that the growing power of Babylon will sweep over the people if they are unable to unite.
As we read these words of Jeremiah today, we may be struck with how similar these visions are to the post-apocalyptic stories in our own modern world. Books like The Hunger Games or Divergent offer us a view of a world that has gone through a violent upheaval. Movies like Mad Max or The Matrix and TV series like The Walking Dead give us a vision of possible futures based on present realities and actions. Like Jeremiah, these stories are grounded in a recognition of the present state of the world. These stories recognize the things that have already taken place, the disconnect between humanity and the rest of creation, the ways in which we have separated ourselves from one another, as well as the potential outcomes of our choices and behaviors if things do not change.
Consider almost any of these stories. Most often the root cause that precipitates the new reality is down to human actions -- war, greed, hubris, pollution. One group wants to take what another group has. One group wants to have control and domination over all others. As a group, we cannot come together to change or limit our destruction of this world and our skies. We consider our individual, personal freedoms more important than our responsibility to one another. We make decisions for short term gain without considering the long term consequences. In the words of Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
As we consider both our modern day apocalyptic stories as well as the picture that Jermiah paints, I want to return to our theme for today. As we consider our skies in the present day, can we see elements of Jeremiah’s prophecies or these other apocalyptic visions already at play? Are there times when the birds seem absent from the skies? Are there times when the very air we breathe is no longer good? Are there times when the air that we all rely on becomes a danger to us?
How can we rethink our relationship with creation and one another in ways that can help us avoid these images of destruction?
How can we care for the heavens and proclaim God’s handiwork along with the skies?
In the end it perhaps helps us to remember that while we are made in God’s image, we are not in fact God. This world in which we live is our home. We should show the same love and care for the rest of the world as we show to the homes in which we live.
This world in which we live is also God’s creation. We should see it for the good and beautiful thing that God created it to be. We should show it the same care that God has shown to us. And we should care for it simply because it is a gift from God.