The First Sunday of Epiphany Year B

The First Sunday of Epiphany
Genesis 1.1–5
Acts 19.1–7
Mark 1.4–11

Wind and water. Light and dark. Heaven and earth. The beginning.

There is a quiet joy about the opening of Genesis. Quiet, not because it’s only slightly exciting, but because we know at once that these are the soft opening notes of a theme that will grow and swell, rise and develop, until the whole orchestra has joined in with wild, exuberant harmony and counterpoint. Even that will only be the completion of the beginning. God saw that it was good. But there is more.

The wind of God sweeps over the waters. Difficult to know how much to hear in that phrase. ‘Wind’ is the same Hebrew word as ‘spirit’, or even ‘Spirit’; there is a good deal to be said for thinking that the writer, editor(s) and transmitters of Genesis 1 would not have made the finicky post-Enlightenment distinctions that we do. A full range of meaning is available, from ‘a mighty wind’ through to ‘God’s Spirit’...

Taken from Twelve Months of Sundays Year B by N T Wright
 
Published by SPCK