It was good

It was near midnight when I took the final stitch to attach the button accenting the dress I was making for my granddaughter and held up the crisp new dress and smiled proudly. I hung it up beside the dresses I had stayed up late for several days to make for her sisters and stood back to admire my work. “They look good,” I smiled proudly to myself.
As I relished the transformation of a couple pieces of material into a trio of dresses, the phrase, “And God saw that it was good” came to mind. It is repeated throughout the record of the creation of the world in Genesis 1:
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. … And God saw that it was good. Gen. 1:9-12a.
As so on through the creation of fish, birds and land animals. It is a pronouncement of satisfaction with a job well done. It does not, however, fit in with the logic of evolutionary thought.
As one who has both studied and taught creation and evolution, I find evolution quite logical. For several years I accepted that logic while still embracing belief in a God big enough to create a universe and yet still be involved with His creation enough to come to earth as a human and turn water into wine at the wedding in Galilee.
I was discussing that miracle with my son when all of my physics, chemistry and biology courses merged into the realization that turning water into wine is scientifically impossible. Pure water does not contain the basic elements found in wine. However, water does contain electrons, neutrons, protons, and smaller units of energy which could be re-arranged into the requisite elements to make wine from water – if commanded to do so by their Creator.
Good wine takes time. The grapes have to be grown, picked, crushed, bottled and aged to get wine … except that one time when the creator of the Universe leaped over all of those steps, to present the master of the feast with the “best wine.”
Because Christ is one with the God of the universe, all He had to do was to command the water to change into the best wine served at the wedding feast.
“It is good.” God said looking at His creation.
“It is the best,” said the master tasting the wine.
They look good I decided as I studied the dresses.
“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested,” Genesis 2:2, 3a (NIV).
Which is exactly what I did when I finished sewing. I sat down, studied the dresses for a while before I went to bed and rested from the work I had done.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)