Posts Tagged ‘Genesis 1:20-2:4a’

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Genesis 1:20-2:4a
Psalm 8
Mark 7:1-13

This past weekend, I took advantage of the winter storm and went snowshoeing for the first time in my life. The day was clear, and the blanketing of snow transformed the woods into vast expanse of white interrupted only by naked trees, meandering creeks, and animal prints.

And two parallel tracks, left by a cross-country skier, cutting through the woods expertly and daringly along paths I would never have thought to take on my own. But I did take them, obliterating the delicate imprint of skis with my own large and cumbersome tracks.

The great account of humanity’s creation by God in the book of Genesis notes that we were made in God’s “image and likeness” (cf. Gen 1:26, 27) These two words, image and likeness, have been subject to all kinds of interpretation, but for me the most compelling is understanding them in terms of pattern and imagination. That humanity was created with a God-shaped pattern that allows us to imagine God, to relate to God, rightly. The consequence of sin and all the ways that we lead ourselves away, or are led away from God, is to erode that pattern, or to impose on it patterns of our own creation. The imprint of snowshoes wiping away or marking over the ski tracks. Read More