Maybe I’m just an oddball, but I’m of the mindset that, if the Bible is right (and let’s put aside all of the excuses and disagreements as to what the Bible actually says and means to a variety of people) – if the overarching story that the Bible is trying to get across to us is true – then, there is a rightness in the world, and there is a wrongness. I know it’s hard to categorize these days, but let’s just say that, for sake of this argument (and, because the Bible says this and I’m working on the premise that the Bible is right) we all know that there is a right and a wrong, and we generally understand which is which.
I remember hearing an Oprah excerpt some years back where she was mind-blown at the statement of a man who claimed clergy in some manner. I cannot remember the details, but I remember this much: that, there it was in the Bible itself – God created everything, and it was all “very good” (and yes, this is in Genesis 1:31). And there sat Oprah, eating this stuff up. “Wow. I get it now. It’s OK to be [in direct conflict with what the rest of the Bible says] because God said at the beginning of the book that he created us all ‘very good.’” What a relief…
Of course, I was flabbergasted at the spiritual malpractice.
Please, set aside any particulars here. Again, I’m focusing on the overall story, and the overall story is anything but “very good.” The overall story goes beyond the garden (the conditions under which the words “very good” were given). It goes to Genesis chapter 3, with the fall and the curse. It goes to Genesis chapter 6, with God resolving to destroy the world and start over. It goes to the countless, very real examples of the selfishness and evil wrought by these “very good” people – the “they” being every one of us.
Come on. Look in the mirror and be honest with yourself. Are you “very good?” I don’t know many people who would go that far (if they were being honest). Sure, we’ve got our share of Stuart Smalleys out there, but even the best of us knows we have issues. Good? Yeah, some of us might think so on a human scale. “Good” as in “certainly better than Hitler.” But “very good?” Let’s not be delusional.
But there is a “very good.” The standard was indeed shown us at the end of the first chapter of Genesis. It was all wrapped up in how God created the world. How he gave us beauty and freedom, love and life and warmth and friendship.
And yet, here we are, struggling to make ourselves feel good by eating up ridiculous phrases like, “God said it was ‘very good,’ so you’re very good.” Sadly, though, the twistings of those two tiny words among the thousands the Bible contains cloud and obscure the real truth – that “very good” left us long ago, but will be back. It will be back for those who understand that the maker of “very good” is going to bring it back himself, and under his conditions — untwistable. And those conditions are quite simple: “Believe in me. Believe in the way I’ve brought this world about – how I’ve planned history in my way – and how I set things right. Believe that I, myself, have given everything in love to make it the way I’ve always intended.”
And yet, we still want it our way. We twist his words and his purpose. We outright deny he even exists, let alone gave us our very lives. And in so many cases, even if we do throw him a bone every so often, we do it appealing to our perverted senses of right and wrong to prop ourselves up as passable in his eyes. On our terms.
“Very good” is coming back. Not in some kind of “Peter Pan Neverland” kind of fantasy world, but as the real thing. Beautiful and perfect, a place without death and tears, mourning or pain. Who would be foolish enough to deny the free gift of an entry ticket into that?
