Dust

The sermon at Crossroads last Sunday was excellent. Fascinating. I didn't take notes on the sermon, precisely, but I took down thoughts.

An episode of Babylon 5 got it exactly right: we are made of the same dust as stars. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (i.e. the entire created cosmos), and of the dust of the ground He made Adam. We are physical creatures as well as spiritual, and by some incredible blessing we even fit in THIS universe. This very earth is what we are made of. We are not strangers. And Eve is made of Adam's bone; people were created to fit together, not thrown together by chance.

But poor Delenn did not understand the fall. When Adam sinned, all people sinned. All of his flesh and bone and dust became perverted, twisted, messed up. And as humans fell, so did all creation. The stars are in a spoiled universe too.

Dr. Hake talks about how the ultimate story of the universe is creation, fall, and redemption. As in one man all dust fell, so in one Man all dust is redeemed. Redemption was foretold at the very beginning, at the same time as the curse was instated. It was inaugurated when Jesus came as a human, because this representative Dust dealt with death. But redemption has not yet been consummated. We still live in this fallen world.

Revelation 21 tells of the lifting of fallen things. The end of the story so neatly wraps up the plot lines that were opened in Genesis 1:
-creation and its ruin
-God dwelling with men, people’s alienation from God
-the tree of life and exile from it
-marriage and alienation of humans from each other
-the curse
-death
-man’s dominion over creation

The salvation of men has been accomplished, and in Revelation we read of the future redemption of the heavens and earth. Human dust and star dust will be reconciled.