Playing with Mud

A few years back I heard a lecture by Old Testament scholar Terence Fretheim. In it he spoke about God’s use of agency in the affairs of the world. One area, in particular, had to do with the creation story. He painted an image of Yahweh stooping down to play in the mud. Yahweh took some clay and molded it and fashioned it into humankind. One can visualize the care with which the great Creator God took. There is an intimacy present with this image. Yahweh, with dirt under the divine fingernails, breathing God’s own breath of life, the Ruach Elohim, into the clay bringing life to this carefully and wonderfully designed new creation.
Yahweh is still playing with mud. If not for the water of life poured out on the dust, which is humanity, we remain dust to be blown away. But, because of Jesus we can become clay in the hands of the great Re-creator God who molds and fashions new humans…while getting the divine fingernails dirty.