The
Majesty of God in Color
I made my screen
background a picture my parents sent from their recent Alaska vacation. The
photo is of a distant mountain range that is a slightly darker shade of blue
than the blue sky in front of a body of pristine water appearing to be an untainted,
mystical blue. It is a blue world. All the blues blend together to create a
supernatural beauty. I was attracted to the picture because it is the closest
I can remember to a time I was flying over the Pacific and found myself looking
out into the blue of the water that merged with the blue of the sky. It was
a spiritual experience that made me feel that I was encircled by the presence
of God in my cocoon of blue.
Recently I was imaging the creation story contained in Genesis one. I was trying
to picture what the part of space that our earth and atmosphere now fill were
like when the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. It was pure darkness.
How did you distinguish the end of the universe? How was the space known only
for its darkness confined? The Bible tells us that the first manner in which
God impacted the space was to create light. What did it look like then? How did
the light alter the watery mass? Did the light create those same hues of blue
that so impact me? Even that first day God allowed the darkness to have its place
in creation. He didn’t completely dispel it from the universe. He simply
made the light mark the day, and then the dark brought the night. Perhaps the
beauty of the light is made more meaningful by its absence when there is darkness.
Next He made a distinction between the waters and the expanse called the sky.
What was the distinction? How did that look? Again, it takes me back to the experience
I had on the plane and to the resemblance I see in my screen background.
We cannot fully imagine all that was happening even only those first two days.
We cannot know the wisdom of God in starting the creation of a universe by hovering,
then bringing light to darkness. We cannot conceive of when the angels were created
and how they were affected by this act. Were they able to understand the heart
of God? I cannot answer those questions, but I can understand that the God who
created the universe is big and amazing and too wonderful for understanding.
It is no easier to understand the way John’s gospel describes the entrance
of Christ into our world. He writes, “In the beginning was the Word and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and made his
dwelling among us” (John 1:1, 14 a). It’s not easy to comprehend,
but somewhere deep in our souls we know it holds the hope we are searching for.
We believe what has been revealed even knowing that there is much we cannot understand.
The majesty of God comes in all the colors of the world. Blue is a favorite color
that touches my soul with God’s presence. Where has God’s color touched
your life?
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