Traumatic events like the pandemic we’re living through have a way of focusing us on the big questions of life. In normal times they come up, too, but they’re much easier to push away or ignore when we aren’t facing our own mortality quite so directly every single day. Who are we? Why are we here? Who is God—if there is a God at all?

The Bible doesn’t answer that last question. For the people of the Bible, the existence of God was a given. But in the context of that belief, the Bible jumps right in to the other questions that so frequently keep us awake or send us to therapy when we get close to them. Who am I? Is there something I should be doing? Does my life have a larger purpose? Does our life together have meaning or is it just every person for themselves?

The Creation story in Genesis 1 taught us who we are and who God is in relation to the world. But it is the Creation story in Genesis 2 that expands to tell us not just who we are, but why we are—what our purpose is as a human species. It also gives us the very first instance of God calling something “not good.”

On Sunday, come for the nerdy Bible word analyses, stay for the purpose of the human race, and go away with a divine mandate to take a nap while God finds you some help. See you then!

Blessings,
Anne