“No, I am your father!”
Darth Vader’s reveal to Luke Skywalker that he was his father was and still remains the most surprising reveal in cinema history. The reveal takes place after a heart-pounding lightsaber battle in Cloud City. Vader disarms Luke of his lightsaber, quite literally, and begins to tell the young Jedi his family origin. See, Obi-Wan, Luke’s teacher in the ways of the Jedi, told Luke that his father was killed by Darth Vader. In an effort to recruit the young, powerful Jedi, Vader reveals that HE is Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father! It’s a shock to the audience because Darth Vader was the last person that was on everyone’s mind to be Luke’s father.
The Bible also is surprising in many ways. One way we do not see in our culture that it’s surprising is at the very beginning:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the water. And God said “let there be light,” and there was light (Genesis 1:1-2 NIV).
One of the best descriptions of the Bible’s function in our lives that I have heard was that the Bible was not written to us, but for us. As the Scriptures were being written, there was an audience on the mind of the author. The better we can understand the audience in which each book is written to, their culture, history, or customs, the better we can understand the author’s goal around the text.
See, Moses was writing to Ancient Near East (ANE) people. These folks have heard genesis stories of other gods before. These stories often depicted other gods battling it out for power and control. In these mythologies, creation was birthed out of war, famine, and brutality. Humans are either depicted as either slaves to the gods or toys for the gods to play with and manipulate. People during Moses’ day was use to hearing of stories such as these.
Now, imagine you are an ANE person and you are reading Moses’ Genesis of creation. There is no war, blood, or even conflict at creation. Instead, God was there and creation simply came by Him speaking. As you continue to read the Genesis story of the Bible, you get an even bigger surprise, that even through God created massive things like planets, stars, and nature, his most prized possession of creation was humans. It was humans who God himself molded with His own hands out of dirt. It was humans that God breathed His breathe of life into (Gen. 2:7). And it was humans that God created out of His own image and likeness. So after God finished all His creation, He rested in and with His creation (Gen 2:2-3).
Now that word “rested” does not mean God got tired from creating and needed a nap. ANE people knew that when a text said that a deity rested, it was a type of “temple narrative” to illustrate that the deity has made their home among the people (usually in a temple building). However, note that in Moses’ creation story, there are no temples. That is because God did not rest in a building, He rested with His people…His children. Although we do not see the word “Father” in the creation story, we see fatherhood attributes of love, care, protection, and creation. It would not be until thousands of years later on a little hillside when Jesus his teaching His disciples to pray that the title of Father was not exclusive to Jesus, but made available to us:
[Jesus said to them], “When you pray, say: “Our Father in heaven… (Luke 11:2)“
Matthew 6:9-13So what does all this mean? Well, the Infinite Life team want to be clear on what we believe and why. We want to go further than to say “because the Bible says so.” We believe God, is creator of heaven and earth. We also believe God is our heavenly Father through Jesus. The “through Jesus” part is important because it is through Jesus we receive that adoption. But we will leave that part for another day.
Our genesis did not come by accident nor by war of the gods. No, it started with God the Father who desired to have a relationship with us. How awesome is that? The creator of Jupiter thought us greater than the Red Giant! We believe God is creator and Father because the Genesis account of creation depicts a God who loves, protects, instructs, and dwells with us. That’s what we believe and what we invite others to ponder on.
Author: Sam Eldridge, IL Lead
