He has freed you from a selfish fixation on gifts. He has freed you to look to the Giver.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done (Gen. 1:31-2:3).
“I believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth,” says the Creed. It’s a foundational truth of the Scriptures that God created all that exists. That’s how the Bible begins, and that truth echoes through the rest of its pages.
Think about the blessings we see God give us in opening chapters of Genesis. Here are just a few: time, space, order, light, air to breathe, water, dry land, plants for food and shade and medicine, sun and moon and stars to teach us to keep time, birds, fish, animals of all kinds, each other and life in community, marriage, family, home, sleep and rest, poetry and song, language, work, purpose in life. The list could go on and on.
In the Catechism, Luther helps us get a handle on these blessings from our Creator too. He writes in his explanation to the First Article, “I believe that God created me and all that exists, and that he gave me my body and soul, eyes, ears and all my members, my mind and all my abilities. And I believe that God still preserves me by richly and daily providing clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, spouse and children, land, cattle, and all I own, and all I need to keep my body and life. God also preserves me by defending me against all danger, guarding and protecting me from all evil.” He is saying “God has created me and all that I am and all that I have. Everything belongs to him because he made, and all I am and have is a gift from him.”
“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). God has given us so many blessings in creation. He continues to provide for us with his creating power. Creation was “very good,” indeed, it was a perfect gift from a loving Creator. Even after the fall, we marvel at the goodness of his gifts. We want to use the gifts he gives. We should recognize these gifts, treasure them, and use them according to God’s design and guidance. Finally, we want to thank God as we serve and obey him.
Sadly, we don’t always do that. These good gifts can become stumbling blocks. I have recently been reading through the Confessions of St. Augustine, and he touches on this very thing. He says, “All these things and their like can be occasions for sin because, good though they are, they are of the lowest order of good, and if we are too much tempted by them we abandon those higher and better things, your truth, your law, and you yourself, O Lord our God. For these earthly things, too, can give joy, though not such joy as my God, who made them all, can give.” (Book II, chapter 5 from the R.S. Pine-Coffin translation)
Augustine warns of being too focused on the gift and forgetting about the one who gave it. He returns to this problem a few chapters later, and this time he also offers a solution:
“The good things which you love are all from God, but they are good and sweet only as long as they are used to do his will. They will rightly turn bitter if God is spurned and the things that come from him are wrongly loved. Why do you still choose to travel by this hard and arduous path? There is no rest to be found where you seek it. Search as you like, it is not where you are looking. In the land of death you try to find a happy life: it is not there. How can life be happy where there is no life at all?
Our Life himself came down into this world and took our away death. He slew it with his own abounding life, and with thunder in his voice he called us from this world to return to him in heaven. From heaven, he came down to us, entering first the Virgin's womb, where humanity, our mortal flesh, was wedded to him so that it might not be forever mortal” (Book IV, chapter 12).
Jesus, the Word through whom all things were made, is also the Life. Jesus wants you to enjoy the good gifts he has given you, but he also wants you to stay focused on the greatest gift. He entered creation and joined himself to us so that we can live with him in heaven, the ultimate Sabbath rest. He has freed you from a selfish fixation on gifts. He has freed you to look to the Giver. When your eyes remain fixed on him, then all those gifts remain gifts and will not turn to stumbling blocks. Jesus gives you those gifts to use and enjoy. He gives you those gifts to use generously in service to others, all to the glory of the Giver.
