The Beginning
“The Beginning” Circle Window, First Presbyterian Church, Edwardsville, Illinois, unveiled 3.18.18. Created by Emil Frei & Associates."He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being." –John 1:2-3We live in an age in which it is possible to define the beginning of the universe without any reference to God. There’s even a song that goes along with this point of view, from a TV series now in its 11th season, with some very clever script writing. The song goes like this:Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state …(Come on, you can sing it with me)Then nearly 14-billion years ago expansion started, wait.The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool.Neanderthals developed tools.We built a wall (we built the pyramids).Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteriesthat all started with the big bang! Hey![1]As the theme song suggests in its own lighthearted way, it has become common to describe the beginning of the universe as an impersonal process governed by principles that humans can understand through science and reason.Today, we move that imaginative, even fanciful, vision of events into the background, and allow it to function as the backdrop against which to see the contrast of a different vision. The Christian Faith still dares to proclaim that before the Big Bang, behind all the unimaginable vastness of space and time, and underneath all the incredibly complex physical and chemical processes that make matter matter, there is God.There is not necessarily a conflict between faith and science. I’ve told you once before the story of Allan Sandage, the esteemed astronomer, whose observations led to the new dating of the universe of “nearly 14-billion years” celebrated in song. The questions that bothered him most were the ones whose answers couldn’t be found in the eyepiece of the telescope. Among them: why is there something rather than nothing? Sandage said, "It was my science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more complicated than can be explained by science. It is only through the supernatural that I can understand the mystery of existence."[2] In the portion of the larger Church occupied by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) we stand with the likes of Allan Sandage, valuing science, but also believing in the God who orchestrated the beginning that science seeks to understand.“The Beginning” is the theme of our new circle window, and the scriptural texts that inspired the window’s artist are the ones we have read (Genesis 1:1-31; John 1:1-5). The writers of these texts couldn’t have predicted the conflict that exists today between people of faith and people who say that science and reason can explain the universe apart from any reference to God. But, if the biblical authors were here with us, they might recognize some of the same dynamics. The priestly writers who finalized the form of the ancient creation narrative recorded in Genesis were addressing Jewish exiles in a world in which Babylon and Babylonian gods seemed to control the future.[3] The disciple John who penned our gospel reading lived in a turbulent time in which God’s people were persecuted, and it seemed that the forces of Rome would shape the world indefinitely.When the authors of our texts told each respective story about the past, it was not for the purpose of escaping the present. When they told a story in which God provides the energy, shape, and form of how the world began, it was a profoundly political and countercultural thing to do. It was the equivalent of saying that Babylonian gods have no lasting power, that Rome will not rule forever: for the God who is responsible for the beginning is the same God who controls the way the story ends.In simplest terms, “The Beginning” window proclaims that God in Christ shaped the beginning of the universe. Like any work of art, it will take on deeper meaning as we interact with it through time. I invite you to notice the way in which the window also contains symbolism about the beginning of our congregation.First, recognize the Chi-Rho symbol in the window: formed from the Greek letter “chi,” which looks like a slightly rotated letter “x,” and the “rho,” which looks like a letter “p.” These are the first two letters in the Greek “Christos,” which we translate as “Christ.” See the way the Chi-Rho divides the circle into 4 quadrants. Look at the upper left quadrant, which echoes elements in the “Deluge, Covenant, and Rainbow” window. Look at the sun, and the aura that surrounds it. If you count the whitish spikes of light that emanate from the sun, you will count 18.Then, look at the upper right quadrant, which echoes elements of the “Parable of the Sowed Seed” window. Look at what you might imagine as stars next to a crescent moon, or seed falling from the hand of God. If you very carefully count the whitish dots, including the smallest ones, you will count 19.Some of you already have guessed where this is headed. If you put the “18” in the upper-left quadrant together with the “19” in the upper-right quadrant, then you get “1819,” the year in which 1st Presbyterian Church Edwardsville was established at a worship service on March 17. Today, March 18, 2018, represents the beginning of the congregation’s 200th year. After 199 years of ministry, after 133 years at the Kansas St. campus, following nearly a year in temporary quarters, wandering in the wilderness, God has granted FPCE the gift of new beginning.Today’s scriptures, and their sermon in window form, call us to contemplate the mystical beginnings of the universe. But stay with me just a while so we can go a little deeper. The rich symbolism also inspires us to moral action. It calls us to live as refractors of light in a world that is sometimes morally dark. You feel the battle between darkness and light: when you face the specter of psychological depression, and are tempted to surrender to despair; when you’re facing an overloaded schedule full of stressful challenges, and are tempted to mask problems by eating too much, drinking too much, or using drugs illegally; when in a conversation about a difficult social or political issue, someone calls you names or attacks your character, and you are sorely tempted to respond in kind.This week, there was another such conversation playing itself out in social media and in the news, when a candidate for the state legislature in Maine criticized a Parkland High School student, who is rather outspoken about her views on gun violence prevention. As is too often the case, a difference of opinion on issues escalated to a personal attack, and Emma Gonzalez was dehumanized with hateful labels, which I choose not to repeat here. It is distressing to realize how common this sort of behavior has become, and how often the people we expect to defuse and correct it are the instigators. How easy it would be to respond in kind. Almost every day, there is a temptation placed before us to turn from the light to the darkness, and charge into the chaos by succumbing to a spirit of hatred and revenge.As I was writing this sermon, the famed physicist Stephen Hawking died. In his early writings, Hawking left open the possibility that God might exist; in his later writings, it appears his journey into atheism was complete. But even Stephen Hawking recognized that all the magnificent mathematics and phenomenal physics he could contemplate did not matter if something else were not true. In a statement issued at his death, his children remembered that Hawking said, “It would not be much of a universe if it wasn’t home to the people you love.”[4]Over against the spirit of hate, let the spirit of love be the choice we make. The calling of every Christian is to recognize the darkness for what it is, and to let God’s light shine through you, to be little circle windows through which God makes many new beginnings. For in Jesus Christ, God’s Word made flesh, the final demise of hatred and chaos has begun. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.NOTES[1] Big Bang Theory Theme Song, by the Barenaked Ladies, in album Hits From Yesterday & The Day Before (2011).[2] Significant portions of this paragraph are adapted from "Science Finds God" by Sharon Begley and Marian Westley, "Newsweek" 20 July 1998.[3] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, p. 25.[4] Marina Koren, “Remembering Stephen Hawking,” The Atlantic, 14 March 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/stephen-hawking-death-obituary/555569/