The Third Day

I wrote this quite some time ago and posted it online, but I thought I would post it again. At Christmastime, I can only praise my Jesus for life.

At the end of the third day, Father God looked out over the newly created Earth and smiled. He saw the lush green of the plants, the deep blue of the still seas, and reveled in the pristine purity of it all. As his gaze skimmed the land, He saw only one place that was not covered in life. On a hill in the northern country, there was a spot that was remarkable in its barrenness. The crags of the rocks were in stark contrast to the blossoming plants all around the hill. As He looked ahead in time, He knew what He would see on this stony pinnacle.

A small seed, dropped on the rocks by a bird passing overhead, struggled to take root in the few grains of sand that had been blown into a crevice. It reached tentacles further and further, hungry for nutrients found only in soil of deeper depth. As it finally reached the end of its ability to survive, it slowly withered. The few shoots it had put out curled in on themselves, and it shriveled into nothingness.

The Father saw this cycle occur again and again. Life did its best to spring forth in an environment that was only suited to death. The spot continued its legacy of desolation, even while the world around it sang praises to the Creator.

Then the Father looked further to the darkest day on Earth, the day when even the sun covered its face in sorrow. God the Son, the Creator, had left Heaven to dwell among the created. They shunned the life He offered, preferring to continue to try to pull meager spiritual sustenance from the insufficient depth of the Law. Men caused Christ to be nailed to a cross on the hill of death. On that day, it was so clear why the Creator had left that spot bare. No life could spring from the place where God would offer Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. And yet, as Christ cried, “It is finished,” the earth trembled and the rocks began to break apart. Each place where His precious blood hit the ground, life sprang forth. The last stronghold of death was defeated, covered with new life.

And because God the Father knew that one day death would be given over to life, and because He knew that one day all Creation could bow and worship Him in purity, at the end of the third day, God said, “it is good.”