The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:15-17).

Tuesday we started to look at the implications of 1st Century Christian apostle Paul’s foundational statement in his letter to the church in Rome: Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:20 NIV). We began enumerating aspects of the natural world that might indeed reveal to us the existence of a Creator God whose power is eternal and whose nature is divine. Here are three more aspects that could compel us to believe that He is due our worship:

Fearsome, but essential, death. Most of life on earth depends on soil—and soil becomes life-giving because it contains dead organic matter. It’s both astounding and humbling to realize that the carbon atoms found in the earth’s living things have been recycled numberless times from the living to the dead and back to the living. The carbon atoms in our bodies were once in the bodies of the rich and famous, in the bodies of the poor and unknown, and in the bodies of mammals, fish, reptiles, insects, algae, and bacteria. What a comfort it is to know that the God who sparks the dead into life underwent in His human form the separation of the soul from the body in death. That the caring and loving Creator would note the death of one sparrow has to fill us with hope that our souls, like that of Jesus Christ, will survive our material death. Having that hope, it is not morbid for us to see the necessity and ultimate goodness of surrendering our lifeless carbon atoms to new living things.

Awesome power. John Muir once wrote of his experience climbing as high as he could in one of Yosemite’s huge Douglas firs in a windstorm. He wanted to feel the power of the gale like a tree does. He writes:

When the storm began to abate, I dismounted and sauntered down through the calming woods. The storm-tones died away, and, turning toward the east, I beheld the countless hosts of the forests hushed and tranquil, towering above one another on the slopes of the hills like a devout audience. The setting sun filled them with amber light, and seemed to say, while they listened, ‘My peace I give unto you.’ As I gazed on the impressive scene, all the so called ruin of the storm was forgotten, and never before did these noble woods appear so fresh, so joyous, so immortal.

The power of the forces that God maintains to keep the engine of His creation going is so overwhelming that it too is beyond words. A blinding blizzard, a roaring waterfall, a surging wave, a bolt of lightning, a grinding glacier—their power has to fill your mind with wonder and compel your soul to worship their Creator.

Conservation of energy. Campfires have to rank near the top among the joys of a wilderness adventure. One of the first things we do when we reach a campsite is to build a fire and seek to maintain it. Then come nightfall we sit cross-legged and transfixed by the phenomenon of carbon being consumed and being turned into light and heat energy and carbon dioxide—CO2 that the trees from which we took our fuel are “ingesting” and turning into oxygen so that it can help burn the wood the next generation will use to build their campfires! What a delight. What a mystery. All the energy and matter the Creator gave us in the beginning is still here: the definitive example of recycling! For all our human wisdom, we don’t really know much about the why and how of this fact. When it comes down to it, as Einstein discovered, we ultimately can’t even tell the difference between matter and energy. Perhaps it is this that fascinates us about campfires—and the reason that building a campfire almost becomes a sacrament, a celebration of creation that honors the ultimate inscrutability of our Creator.

That’s no doubt also the fact that drew wilderness-dwelling Moses to the burning bush, because for the first time a human being, as far as we know, was seeing the Author of matter and energy change the rules. And from that unusual fire came the voice identifying itself as the “I am”—the eternally existent One and the source of all things. In a similar fashion the ascended Christ identified himself to John in the Revelation as the “I am.”

The great Creator became our Savior!

[Burning bush photo source]