And the world was made

Today begins the new year. We have made it to the year 7,532 Anno Mundi. The Roman Empire would start the tradition of beginning the year on September 1. The Christians would continue this tradition after Rome’s conversion from Paganism. Due to their commitment to continue on the Roman legacy, the Christian Roman Empire would maintain this tradition but give it a new meaning. The creation of man would date all the way back to September 1 of 5509 B.C. All these years later and the dating of the year via Anno Mundi (from the creation of the world) has lasted among the Eastern Orthodox and the Byzantine Catholics alike now for 7,532 years. Sometime in the 19th century, the Melkite Byzantine Catholics adopted the Gregorian Calendar. The Gregorian Calendar edited the dating of the leap year so that it is currently 13 days ahead of the Old Julian Calendar dating back to Julius Caesar. The leap year is held every four years on the Julian Calendar, but on the Gregorian Calendar, every 400th year, the leap year goes unobserved.

This adaptation of the Gregorian Calendar by the Melkite Byzantine Catholics makes today the anniversary of the Creation of the World. In the beginning there was nothing. God alone Was. And God was love. God emitted love eternally. God always emitted love. There was never a time He did not emit love. The Latins are sometimes disturbed about the essence/energies distinction thinking that Byzantine Catholics worship two gods and are heretics. But Palamism has never received formal condemnation in the Church. Only the rejection of Divine Simplicity has received formal condemnation. God’s essence is one and that is what the doctrine of Divine Simplicity entails. But the idea that grace is created in the same way that other things are created is a dangerous idea to conceive and it damages the meaning of theosis. Grace is directly emitted from God Who is eternal. As an eternal sun, God has constantly emitted rays eternally. Those rays are grace, love, mercy, justice, and everything good. Seeing the formless and the void, God, out of love and justice, could not maintain everything as that. He began to create.

God continued to create and the crowning jewel of His creation was man. Man, who was made a little lower than the angels due to his material nature, was made in the Image of God. Man, not angels, were made in the image of God. God breathed life into man and gave Him the free will to forsake his immortality which God offered through the Tree of Life. God looked upon man and saw that man was alone. God, being Triune, could not leave man alone, but desired to make man like unto Himself. Created for love. He created for man a counterpart to be united with him in one human race. And that counterpart would become to him a completion of the human race. Without that counterpart, man would not be man. And so God created the woman. The woman and the man together would be commanded to participate in the creative act of God. Only both halves functioning together can do this. All falling short of this is sin.

Man forsook the immortality by pursuing his own means of immortality. He ate of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil wishing to become like God on his own terms. But it did not make him like God. The serpent deceived man into thinking he would become what he already was. And man forsook his immortality, bringing death into the world through that sin. But it was God’s intention to see His crowning jewel brought into unity with Him. He would proffer Himself as sacrifice in order to restore that which was broken and offer once again the Tree of Life to His crowning jewel. Material and spiritual, a little lower than the angels, now mortal.

We commemorate the Creation of the World and the 7,532nd anniversary of its creation today because without Creation, there is no Gospel. Creation is the very act of the love of God. Creation proves that God is love. God’s love is the reason for Creation. God’s desire to have Creation participate in His Life is the Gospel. It is the reason for man. It is the reason for the Cross. It is the reason for the Incarnation. It is the reason for theosis. It is the reason for all things Heavenly and human. The Creation of the World is the reason for the Divine Liturgy. It is the reason for the Church.