Our Creator Loves His Creation
Our Creator Loves His Creation
Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Our God created the entire universe. It is sometimes easier for us to circle in on ourselves and lose touch of the sheer grand majesty of the entire created order. Yet, Our God created the entire universe. And, here is the best part, He thinks of, loves, and holds you in being as if you are the most precious thing in all of creation.
“Creation is the foundation of ‘all God's saving plans,’ the ‘beginning of the history of salvation’ that culminates in Christ” (CCC 280). Our God, who created the entire material and immaterial order, is immanently transcendent over creation. Few characters in Scripture were made so keenly aware of God’s omnipotence than Job. Read Job 38:1, 8-11, and you will see that Job is brought to sobering awareness that our greatest sufferings and complaints on earth infinitely pale in comparison to the Most High God. Yet, this isn’t to say that God doesn’t care about us. In fact, the opposite is true. Despite His omnipotence, or I should say because of it, God designs a wondrous plan of Salvation History that finds its apex in the finished work of His Only Son on the Cross. And God is continuing that work in us today. The all-powerful God is working out your salvation in you individually, because you are uniquely loved by Him.
The Israelite people had this notion ingrained in their societal psyche. All of Israel lived the covenantal life of being the beloved of YHWH. They sing in the Psalms “Let them thank the LORD for his mercy, such wondrous deeds for the children of Adam” ( Psalm 107: 31), extolling the incomparable greatness of the God of Israel that no other religion in history has ever nor will ever know, outside of the Judeo-Christian revelation.
Christ culminates what God began in the Garden at the fall of man. Creation was marred by the sin of our first parents. When Christ took on human nature, he assumed it that He might redeem it. ALL of it. It wasn’t enough for God to just pay the debt of justice owed by our sin. God then went further to grant us grace, which is His own divine life, poured out into our souls by the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that by sacramentally embracing the Christian life, we have completely died to our old selves. In this sense, God is literally continuing His creating work by making us a New Creation! As Paul writes, “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come,” (2 Cor 5:17). Sacramental regeneration by the waters of baptism completely transforms the advent and horizon of our lives. We are dead to our old live and alive to the Heavenly call we have in Christ.
Simply put, it’s not enough that He created the universe and all mankind, He also became His own creation so that He might walk among them and redeem them back to Himself! We literally get to proclaim in a very unique way, “God has visited his people.” (Luke 7:16b). Our God has become one like us! He has tabernacled Himself among us. He is still eminently and substantially present among us and within us, especially in the life of grace and, in a special way, through the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. The Creator is LIVING amongst His creatures! Why? Because He wants His creatures to one day live in eternal happiness with their Creator.
Christ manifested this great authority over all of creation while He was on earth. The declaration of the apostles on the Sea of Galilee is one that we ought to echo, “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?” (Mark 4:41). There is no trouble we could ever encounter in the created material life that will ever hold more power over us than God’s infinite love for us. Our God not only created the world, He conquered the world. For us. The winds and the seas of your life obey Him. They are subject to Him. The best, most fruitful thing we can do in this life is to run to the arms of our Creator and let Him set the winds and the seas of our lives to rest. Let us enjoy being people of the new creation in Christ.
Deus Benedicat