On the Eighth Day

It was very early on the first day of the week and still dark, when Mary of Magdala came to the tomb.

Did you catch that? It was Sunday. This wasn't church day back then (yet), but it was first day of the workweek. To them, it was "Monday." John is making a point here, a point that has to do with Creation Week itself. He's saying the counter is starting over. We have moved into a New Creation, a new week of possibility opened by the creator himself. It's the first day again.

She saw that the stone had been moved away from the tomb and came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. 'They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,' she said, 'and we don't know where they have put him.' ...

In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, ....

Did you catch that again? This isn't just "any Monday" for St. John. It's THE first day all over again. It's the Eighth Day of Creation. The Creator is moving and is stepping into creation. This may seem redundant but if it's important enough for John to repeat I figure I should repeat it 7 or 8 times.

Let's finish out the scene for one more hint.

... the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, 'Peace be with you,' and, after saying this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy at seeing the Lord, and he said to them again, 'Peace be with you. 'As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.' After saying this he breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit.
In Genesis 2, the breath of God entered Adam and he became a living soul. Now the Creator was breathing again, and the disciples were receiving the Holy Spirit. Creation continued anew, with the same Creator moving and breathing and bringing life.
Right after this is the story of Thomas, which is a story of faith as much as it is of doubt. After all, Thomas demands evidence of the resurrection, and demands that it come to him. God gives him his request, but when the chance comes he is the first to call Jesus "my Lord and my God." This man whose body stands before him is also God, and is making all things new, starting with Thomas' own heart. Aidan, as you know, we gave you Thomas as your second name, in part because of this story (also Thomas More and Thomas Beckett and a few others!).
Let there be light. Let there be science. Let there be art. Let there be healing. Let new creation happen in his name.
One thing science-types like me are guilty of losing sight of when we spend so much time talking about creation is that we don't talk about our belief in new creation at the same time. While interpreting Genesis 1 is important, I think interpreting John 20 and Matthew 28 and Mark 16 and Luke 24 and 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 8, that's even more important. That's why this series needs an eighth day, and the Gospel of John gives the clear Biblical basis for saying so. I think all of these chapters, with far more words than Genesis 1, are records or eyewitness accounts of a singular, unrepeatable event that gave impetus to the extreme energy of the early church. To be a little facile, they're journal articles by different researchers on an experiment done by the Creator, an experiment done once that changed the world.
If it's unscientific of me to believe that, then it's also unscientific of me to study history and come to conclusions about anything happening that I haven't personally seen or controlled myself. In the resurrection I see God stepping into history to transform it in such a way that those who witnessed it were themselves changed. There were no disinterested observors of the event because there could be none -- one look turned Thomas from skeptic into theologian.
So on the eighth day God was active, and he presaged an event that He will carry out for everyone at a time of his choosing. In that light Christians have no choice but to live for that day by doing everything in light of that day.
If anyone is in Christ -- new creation. Eventually all will be healed -- so I'll start by trying to heal now. Eventually I will know as I am known -- so I'll work toward that now, because I know that those good things will persist into the Age to Come.
If anyone is in Christ -- new creation. J.R.R. Tolkien did an act of "subcreation" in making Middle Earth because he intuitively understood that in doing so, he was following Jesus. Each of us has to find the niche of subcreation the Creator has assigned.
In anyone is in Christ -- new creation. You become a new Little Big Bang, a cornucopia of blessing, and you can extend this goodness back into a warped and fallen creation, remaking and renewing it. This is the challenge for scientists, to redeem the world, knowing that we'll mess it up but hoping that grace will be there to help us get it right once in a while. It's neither the hubris or the fear that you see in popular accounts of science like Jurassic Park. Rather, it's a specific job, with limited reach, good days and bad days, with the potential to hurt if misused but the potential to heal if used right.
God is not a passive God doing untraceable and unexplainable creation events 5000 years ago, but God is an active Creator who steps into his own story and writes in a real-life Return of the King halfway through history. The Resurrection means the veil is rent and God is revealed as a first-century rabbi. God chose to be trapped for all time in that mode. He did not choose to be trapped in the gaps of creation, which we find as we watch those gaps get narrower each day. Every new finding about the relatedness of creation connects it all the more, but you must not forget that the same science that leads you to Descent with Modification also leads you to the crystal clear creation event that is the Big Bang. God has not carved his name on the moon, nor in the DNA or gaps between different species' proteins, but He has chosen to be trapped in history in other ways:
1.) The Big Bang singularity (the Father's hand?)
2.) The person of Jesus and the historical event of the resurrection
3.) The continuing work of the Spirit, seen clearly in the history of the early church
4.) The image of God in you, which is your sense of self and non-transferrable consciousness, represented by your name (see Day 6)
[For more on point 2 and why I'm so unreasonably confident in labeling the Resurrection as history, I highly suggest reading NT Wright's 800-page behemoth of a book, The Resurrection of the Son of God, which is far more readable than any 800-page book has any right to be.]
Those four items above are why I believe in God, and I think they are the most important things to pass on to you, my two sons. If you've gotten this far, Sam and Aidan, congratulations, this is all for you.
The event of the resurrection is also the only reasonable explanation I have found for how, two thousand years ago, there was a man (probably Jewish) who looked at the life of the man Jesus and started to write about him as the Creator of the universe, something no Jew and indeed no human would have done without an earth-shattering event observed first hand. Because John had seen and touched the living body of Christ, he knew the creator was once again moving, and was moving in the pattern shown by Jesus. So he took up his pen and wrote:
In the beginning was the Word / and the Word was with God / and the Word was God / He was in the beginning with God / All things were made through Him / and without Him nothing was made that was made / In Him was life / and the life was the light of men.
Sam, Aidan, I pray that God will show you how he wants you to take part in the grand symphony He wrote. You can be part of it. You can let there be light.
There was morning light into the empty tomb. The eighth day of creation was begun, and it continues to this day.
Love, Dad
PS: Thank you to all (both?) of my readers. Please let me know what you think of all this if you ever get the chance.