Coffee, Cups and the Cosmos

Whilst I like coffee, I'm not one of those people who is completely fuelled by it.  You know, the sort of person who is dangerous to approach in their pre-coffee state, or is completely useless before they've had their morning cup (tea, on the other hand, is another matter...)

However, our church is full of coffee people.

It is in such popular demand that we have come perilously close to running out of coffee on several occasions.  And this has sometimes been coupled with the equally devastating problem of no cups.

Naturally, this discovery, less than an hour before the service is due to start, has led to a panic for the hospitality team and an emergency trip to Sainsbury's for coffee and cups.

However, a few times, even though we have looked everywhere for coffee cups, someone else has gone to "have one last look" and has returned joyfully wielding coffee and/or cups.  Somehow, somewhere, we have found coffee where we thought there was none.  We have found something where we thought there was nothing.

In the same way, Genesis tells us that God created the world from nothing.  In his modern retelling of the Bible ("Word on the Street"), Rob Lacey rewrites Genesis 1:1-2 like this:

"First off, nothing. No light, no time, no substance, no matter. Second off, God starts it all up and WHAP! Stuff everywhere! The cosmos in chaos: no shape, no form, no function– just darkness ... total. And floating above it all, God’s Holy Spirit, ready to play."

Now, whether you see the creation story in Genesis as the literal word of God or an allegory, the message is the same: God has the power and the ability and the resources to create something out of nothing.

Why does that matter?

Not only does it show us God's power, it gives us hope when we feel at the end of ourselves and as though we are stuck in a dead-end situation. 

"When you're between a rock and a hard place, it won't be a dead-end, because I am God, your personal God."

[Isaiah 43:3 MSG emphasis mine]

When we feel that there is no answer to our problems, when we don't have the energy to keep going, when we don't have the money to pay the bills, when we don't have the coffee to fuel the church, God can make something out of nothing.