Music in the service of the church in the service of the world
In chaos and nothingness
1. In chaos and nothingness, you of unnameable Name
spoke into the emptiness, fanning dark energy's flame.
Your Spirit was hovering, racing and shaping the birth
of galaxy clusters, of sun and the moon and the earth.
2. Your voice pierced the darkness, your Word blazed your light on the world;
tectonic plates drifted while aeons and ages unfurled;
and coaxing the DNA helix to double and bind,
your Spirit breathed origin to every species and kind.
3. O Lord, where were we when you laid the foundations of earth?
When morning stars harmonised song, when the oceans burst forth?
When you played your dice, when you planned that through chance life evolved?
In mere mortal span, still your mysteries remain unresolved.
4. So where then is wisdom, and can understanding be found?
Yet heavens are voicing your glory: in Christ is their crown.
Invisible God, given visible image, you came,
breathed order and life: Jesus Christ, Name above every name.
Transcendent and immanent, God ever three, ever one:
we praise you and worship you, Father and Spirit and Son.
In gratitude to Pete Enns for showing why Genesis 1 was written in its day as positive theology by and for its people of its time, and why modern Western "creationism" is an inappropriate way of reading it.