Genesis 1 English Standard Version (ESV)
The Creation of the World
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
The beginning of the Bible depicts a universe of chaos. The words translated as without form and void in verse 2 of Genesis 1 are the words, “tohu wabohu.”
The word “Tohu” is used 20 times in the Old Testament, and always is translated as “vain” or “waste.” This conveys a meaning of pointlessness or being without purpose.
The word “Bohu” is used 3 times in the Old Testament, here in Genesis 1:2, in Isaiah 34:11, and Jeremiah 4:23. In both Genesis and Jeremiah it is translated as “without form and void,” but in Isaiah it is translated as “confusion.”
(Rob Robinson, “Tohu wa -bohu, Earth “Was” or “Became,” Waste and Void? https://robertcliftonrobinson.com/2014/07/29/tohu-wa-bohu-earth-was-or-became-waste-and-void/)
So, the state of the earth at the beginning of creation was pointless, without purpose, and in a state of confusion. That sounds to me like a pretty good description of chaos. The earth was in a state of chaos.
“And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Water has, from ancient times, been a representative of chaos. And not just from the Hebrews, but from ancient cultures around the world. “Of all the ancient metaphors used to describe this original state of chaos, water appears to have been the most popular (at least according to translations into the English language).”
(Marrin West, “The Waters of Chaos” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239849003_The_Waters_of_Chaos)
It isn’t hard to imagine why water would be a representation of chaos. If you’ve ever been on a boat during a storm you will understand what I’m talking about. We see images in movies and tv shows of giant waves and chaos in the middle of the waters.
Or have you ever gone swimming at the beach, and suddenly realize you are out too deep, and you can’t touch the bottom? It can be a little bit, or maybe a lot bit, scary and chaotic.
But the cool thing is, God was present, even in the midst of the chaos. From the very beginning. The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. That means that God was present, He was there, right in the middle of all that chaos, in the middle of the tohu wabohu, in the middle of the wild and waste, in the pointlessness, and in the confusion. God was there.
And if that was where the story ended that would be sad. It would truly be pointless and confusion. But God did not leave the world to tohu wabohu. God took that chaos and that disorder, and he created order and life. The following verses, Genesis 3 through 31 tell how God took the chaos of the waters, took what was formless and void, and bought order.
He separated darkness from light, he separated the land from the waters. He created plants and animals and humans. He created order and life from what was chaos.
Throughout the story of the Bible we continually see God working to bring order from chaos.
If we had time this morning, I would take you through every page of the Bible and show you how, time and again God brought order from chaos, but we would be here all day, so I’m going to pick a few out for you.
Let’s fast forward a few years from creation to the time of the Exodus.
God’s people, the nation of Israel, had, through the chaos of a famine, moved to Egypt. And over time they became enslaved by the Egyptians. They cried out to God to free them from the chaos of oppression, and God heard their cry.
Out of the chaos of the murder of children God saved a baby who would come to be called Moses. And through his own chaos of murder Moses was led into the chaos of wilderness. But it was there that he met to God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. From the chaos of a burning bush, God spoke to Moses, and called him to free His people.
And so, Moses went, though reluctantly at first, and God used him to bring 10 plagues of chaos to the Egyptian people and their Pharaoh. And after the 10th plague the Israelite children were finally released from their captivity in Egypt.
But Pharaoh saw only chaos in letting the people go, so he changed his mind and pursued them, to capture them and bring them back.
We find, in the 14th chapter of the book of Exodus, a scene of chaos. The people of Israel are trapped between two bodies of chaos. On one side they have the pursuing Egyptian army, and on the other the chaotic waters of the Red Sea. They were surrounded by chaos, and they were afraid.
But God is not a God of chaos. He is a God of order. So he said to Moses, “stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it.” And so he did, and God pushed back the chaos of the waters and created order in a path of dry ground that the Israelites used to escape from their Egyptian pursuers. And when they had escaped to freedom God again unleashed the chaos of the water and defeated the Egyptian army.
God brought about order from chaos.
Now this wasn’t nearly the end of Chaos for the Nation of Israel. And most of the chaos that Israel would face came from it’s own doing.
Eventually the Hebrew children settled down in the land we now call Israel. But it wasn’t easy. For hundreds of years they had to fight for what God had promised them. God would send judges and prophets to help them overcome the chaos around them and find order.
Eventually they told God to give them a king. They wanted to be like the people around them, and they thought that a king would help to bring order. They sought to bring order from chaos under their own terms.
And so, God gave them what they wanted, and Saul became the first King of Israel.
Now during Saul’s reign there continued to be chaos. The particular source of chaos for the Israelites was the Philistines. Saul did his best to create order, but he was not the most successful.
One illustration of this we find in 1 Samuel, chapter 17. The armies of Israel are facing off against the armies of the Philistines with a valley between them. And the Philistines sent out their champion Goliath.
Now if there was a physical embodiment of chaos it was Goliath. He was six cubits tall. Now a cubit is about 18 inches, so six cubits is about 108 inches, or 9 feet tall. At this time the average adult male would have been about 5 ½ feet tall, so this giant would have towered above any other man.
His armor and armament would have caused any man to tremble in his boots. He was intimidating.
Yet David refused to give in to the chaos of Goliath and the Philistines. While the other Israelites were scared to confront Goliath, David had confidence. He said to King Saul, “Let no man's heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.” Saul, of course did not believe this small boy would be able to defeat the Philistine, when there was no man in the whole if the armies of Israel who was willing to go against him. Yet David persisted and the King relented.
And so, David prepared to meet with the Giant. And where did he go? Interestingly, he went to the water. He went to a brook, a small creek, chaos, and he took five smooth stones. The chaos of the water had created order in the stones they were perfect for the purposes of God.
And with the order from chaos, just one of those 5 stones, David defeated Goliath, and through the power of God created order out of the chaos. The Israelites were able to defeat the Philistines.
Eventually David became the king of Israel, and he was finally able to unite the tribes, more than Saul was able to do, and bring order to the region.
Let’s fast forward again several hundred years.
David’s descendants ruled his kingdom after his death. But just two generations after David his kingdom was again entrenched in chaos. Eventually the Nation of Israel was divided in two. Then first the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and then the Southern Kingdom of Judah, were taken into captivity and exile.
The temple that David’s son Solomon had built, a building that represented the presence of God, a God of order amidst chaos, was destroyed.
About 70 years after Judah went into exile, they were able to return to their land. But it wasn’t really the same. The temple was rebuilt, but it was just a facsimile of the original. They had their land, but it wasn’t really their own, they were a vassal state.
The people of Israel longed for a Messiah who would overthrow the chaos of their oppressors, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Romans. Just like Moses of old, they longed for a redeemer who would free his people.
And then, in the midst of the chaos of a Roman census, a child was born; a descendant of the great King David.
And only a couple of years after his birth, he barely escaped the chaos of the slaughter of Bethlehem’s sons 3 years and younger. He traveled to the location of the Israelite’s early captivity in Egypt.
When he was older, he visited the Temple in Jerusalem, along with his family. Amidst the chaos that Mary and Joseph felt when they could not find their son, he was in a place of order, in the Temple, speaking with the teachers.
After a number of years Jesus was led by the Spirit into the chaos of the wilderness, after having visited the chaos of the waters of baptism.
Jesus gathered around himself 12 seemingly chaotic men. Some fishermen, a zealot, a tax collector, and others.
One day these men were out on the Sea of Galilee together. Jesus was taking a nap in the boat, when suddenly chaos broke out. The wind was fierce, the waves were crashing over the boat and filling up, threatening to sink it. And all the while Jesus remained at peace, sleeping in the stern of the boat. His disciples panicked, crying out to him. But he gently rose up, rebuked the wind and the waves and out of the chaos, there was peace, out of the chaos there was order. And the disciples were amazed.
On another occasion, the disciples were together in a boat, but this time Jesus wasn’t with them, because he had sent them ahead. But a storm had risen up, and they were bashed by the wind and the waves. They don’t seem to be as afraid in Matthew 14 as they were in Mark 4, but maybe it’s just that they didn’t have Jesus with them to cry out to?
But Jesus was still with them. In the 4th watch, somewhere between 3:00 and 6:00 in the morning. Jesus came walking on the chaotic sea toward the boat. This time Peter cried out to Jesus, but not out of fear, but out of faith. He said if it was really Jesus, the Jesus should command him to come out on the water. Jesus did so, and Peter walked on the water, amidst the chaos of the storm. But Peter lost his focus. When he was focused on Jesus he was walking, and there was order. But when he began to focus on the chaos, he started to sink. He cried out to Jesus, and Jesus saved him, and put him in the boat, and when Jesus had entered the boat, the chaos ended. The winds and the waves died, and there was order, and there was peace.
But then, just a short amount of time from the peace of the boats, Jesus entered into chaos that he did not still with a word. He didn’t still the chaos by climbing into a boat, or by taking up a rock, or by lifting his staff, or by separating the waters. Instead he endured the chaos.
Isaiah 53 is the perfect description of the chaos the Jesus endured. Listen:
3He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.
4Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
5But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
6All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.
9They made his grave with the wicked
and his tomb with the rich,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.
When you make his life an offering for sin,
he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;
through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.
11Out of his anguish he shall see light;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out himself to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
Chaos. Nothing but pure, unadulterated chaos. That is what the cross was. That is the description of the journey that Jesus took to and on the cross 2000 years ago.
Jesus endured the chaos of the cross to bring about order and peace. Notice what is inserted into the description of chaos in the chapter. “Upon him was the punishment that made us whole.” The punishment that brought us peace, the bible says in other translations. The chaos that Jesus endured on the Cross brought us order. By his wounds we are healed. He bore our sins to make intercession for us. He bore the chaos that we deserve, so that we can have peace.
Oh, I wish we had time today to examine all of the stories of the Bible where God brought peace and order from chaos. I could tell you about Gideon, and Ruth, and Josiah, Noah, Jonah, and Samson. We could look at stories that you are familiar with, and ones you may never have heard of.
But we don’t have to just look at the Bible. We can look at history. We can see God bringing about order from chaos throughout the history of the world. We can see God bringing about order from chaos throughout the history of the Church. But we make it even more personal. God is working right now to bring order from the chaos of your mess.
I don’t know the details of the mess that all of you have been in. But I can bet, that there was quite a bit of chaos involved. I know the stories of some of our Pastoral Mentors and other staff a little better, and I know that there was total chaos in many of their lives.
1 Corinthians 14:33 says that our God is not a God of confusion, or chaos, but a God of peace.
In Matthew 11 Jesus says, “28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
He invites us to surrender our chaos and our confusion and our destruction to Him. And He will give us order and peace in return.
In this time of the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, or whatever you want to call it, there is much chaos.
Satan would like to use this chaos as a time to divide, and create fear, anxiety, and panic.
If we rely on Jesus, he will bring order from the chaos. HE will bring families together, he will help us disconnect from our reliance on material things, he will teach us to trust in Him and not in the world.
So, the simple question for you this morning is this. Where will you place yourself? Will you give in to the chaos, or will you cry out to Jesus, as Peter did? Will you let chaos rule in your life, or will you allow Christ to enter in and create peace and order?
It is your choice.
Marrin West, “The Waters of Chaos” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239849003_The_Waters_of_Chaos
