In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2)
I was thinking the other day about what we know from Scripture about how the Holy Spirit interacts with the natural world. We know that from the beginning of creation that the “Spirit of God” has been present on the earth.
In the beginning the Spirit “hovered” over the waters. The Hebrew word used there appears only three times in Bible. The context suggests that the Spirit acted in the creation like the caring and protecting eagle parent in Deuteronomy 32:11 where the word is used again: The eagle “stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions.”
We also know that the Spirit continues to act in creation by giving life: “When You [Lord] take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth” (Psalm 104:29-30) It seems from these references that the Spirit is a “pregnant” presence vital to each new life-giving and life-affirming natural act (“pregnant” in this sense meaning “full of creative power”).
Further, dramatic appearances of the Holy Spirit are mentioned in the context of two other genesis events: the beginning of Jesus’ ministry at His baptism and the beginning of the Church at Pentecost. The human life and ministry of Christ (the incarnation of God in Jesus) and the life and ministry of “the Body of Christ” (the incarnation of Jesus in His church) are both attended by the Holy Spirit. The Spiritual gives birth to the material. The Supernatural gives birth to the natural.
This is both marvelous and mysterious. Full understanding of it is certainly well beyond me. But I think we can at least draw this conclusion: God the Holy Spirit is all about life and breath. It is the Spirit who gives and perpetuates the life of all creation. Absence of the Spirit means death.
Yet here is something more personally compelling: This is the same Spirit who indwells you and me who have been rescued by God the Son—maintaining our physical life and giving us our spiritual life. It’s my belief, therefore, that as we walk upon the face of the earth, the indwelling Spirit will move in our inner being when we observe and take part in both the birth and death of living, breathing creatures. Perhaps that’s the reason that God attends the death even of the sparrow (Luke 12:6-7). [This sobers me greatly when I think that God no doubt also attends the tortured life and death of His creatures in our industrialized production of meat and eggs and in our "sport" hunting---another subject for another time.]
George MacDonald is one of my favorite writers. He was—in his writing—a mentor to C. S. Lewis. MacDonald too wondered about the interactions of the Spirit within us and the Spirit outside us. Here are his thoughts about that:
All about us in earth and air, wherever eye or ear can reach, there is a power ever breathing itself forth in signs. Now it shows itself in a daisy, now in a waft of wind, a cloud, a sunset, and this power holds constant relation with the dark and silent world within us. The same God who is in us and upon whose tree we are buds, also is all about us. Inside the Spirit; outside the Word [Jesus, as per John 1:1]. And the two are ever trying to meet in us; and when they meet, the sign without and longing within become one. The man no more walks in darkness, but in light, knowing where he is going.
It’s my earnest prayer that in my interactions with God’s wonderful creation I will be more and more attentive to the Spirit within and the Word without in order that I truly might know just where I am going.
[Soaring eagle photo source here. Pentecostal dove photo source here.]
