Jesus, Creator and Redeemer

The following sermon was written for the Niagara Celtic Festival and preached on September 17, 2006.
It is frequently said of Celtic Christianity that there remains at its core a deep appreciation for God’s beautiful creation, and this would be a very true thing to say. And this appreciation for creation is a good thing, given that the God we worship is indeed the Creator God who made the earth “good.” Multiple hymns, and many Celtic ones, include the grand theme of God’s power in creation. We sang one just a few moments ago: “I Sing the Almighty Power of God,” a song which documents God’s creative and sustaining acts of His creation.

But it should be made very clear that Celtic Christianity is thoroughly Trinitarian. When we sing and I speak of God creating the world, we’re not talking about some far away deity who set the world into motion and is sitting back and watching it unfold. We’re talking about the Trinitarian God of ancient, orthodox Christian theology: Father, Son, and Spirit.

The text I’ve just read, as well as many others, are clear that God the Father was not acting alone in creation. The original creation account on the first page of the Scriptures explains that “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” So there we see the Spirit’s involvement. The text I’ve just read to you explains that Jesus, the Son of God, was also an active participant in creation.

In fact, it not only says that He was active in creation, St. Paul is actually telling us here that Jesus Christ is the entire point of creation. The very reason that all of creation exists, the primary purpose for you and I being here, is Jesus Christ. “All things were created,” St. Paul says, “through him and for him.”

But how and why is Jesus the point of all creation? And why is He called the “firstborn from the dead”? And why would he even have had to die, if we’re claiming that He is God Himself?

Let’s return to the Celtic appreciation for the beauty of creation. I think we can all agree with Celtic thinking here: creation is beautiful. And if we believe in a Creator God, then we must also believe that it is His handiwork. But I think it’s safe the say that we’d also be willing to agree that something is dreadfully wrong with creation. In the first place, if an eternal God created everything, why does everything die? And why does His creation break down and deteriorate? Why do we suffer physically? Or emotionally even?

Whatever it is that God created this world to be, something is now wrong; something is broken. While we still see glorious glimpses of its original beauty, we also know that the world is damaged, broken.

In fact, in the Judeo-Christian story, the first rebellion against God is a rebellion pertaining to God’s creation, isn’t it? Whether you take the story of Adam and Even literally or as a symbolic way of explaining certain truth, the point remains the same: the first rebellion against God was disobedience to his command about how to care for the earth. God created us as caretakers of this earth, and ever since that first rebellion, we’ve been breaking that command, using up the earth for our own purposes, and not caring for it well at all.

So I submit this very simple point to you: the world is broken because God broke it. And God broke His own creation because of human rebellion against Him. And this is not the work of a trite and vengeful God who can’t take a little personal insult. It’s the action of a just God, who must punish wrongdoing.

But thankfully, God’s wrath is not His final word on this matter. Back to our question: St. Paul is telling us that Jesus is the entire point of all creation. How so? Well, there are two things Paul says about Jesus here: He is the firstborn over all creation, and the firstborn from the dead. But why the firstborn from the dead? Why would God himself die?

He died, because love is God’s final word towards His creation. If evil has crept into the world through human rebellion, but God’s primary way of looking at creation and at his people is love, then there is simply no way God could leave the world broken and dying. So He launched a rescue mission in Jesus. Jesus took on flesh and bone, lived amongst and as part of this broken world, submitted to the curse and brokenness God placed on the world, and then obliterated all its evil and brokenness by rising from the dead.

Jesus defeated all evil on our behalf. Jesus destroyed this world’s brokenness for us. All our rebellion against Him can be forgiven, once and for all. In His cross, St. Paul says, Jesus made peace. The rebellion can be over, in the words of Paul, “if indeed you continue in the faith.” What faith? Faith in Jesus, who came, forgave our sins on the cross, and defeated all evil in His resurrection. The world remains presently broken, but in Jesus’ death and resurrection, a new creation, God’s plan for restoration of the whole world, dawned right in the middle of this present evil age. One day, new creation will be brought to completion. Until then, all who are united to Jesus by faith take part in that first hope, that first glimpse of a restored, whole creation.

Come, then, today, whether already a believer in Jesus or not, come. Come to Christ even now. Celtic Christians have always known that God could be found in the beauty of His creation, but they also know that none of us can see it properly apart from Jesus, the author of the New Creation, the restored and whole creation.

If you think creation is beautiful now, come and look at the New Creation which is found in Christ. Look to Christ, receive the forgiveness of sins, the certain hope of an unbroken eternal existence, and eyes that can see the beauty of the earth in a way you’ve never seen it before.