Understatement

ESA/Hubble

According to the Creation account in the NIV translation, God used:

• 13 spoken words to create about 1,800,000,000 cubic miles of sky, 

• 16 words to form approximately 57,500,000 square miles of land and 139,400,000 square miles of ocean, 

• 25 words to craft roughly 321,000 species of plants,

• 20 words to make about 31,300 species of fish and 10,000 species of birds, and

• 25 words to fashion approximately 1,264,000 land-based vertebrate animal species and millions species of insects (Genesis 1:6-24 and Wikipedia).

In addition to the words God spoke to create, there is this very footnote-esque statement during Day 4 of creation: “He also made the stars” (Genesis 1:16). Five simple words that refer to, oh, about 400,000,000,000 stars in our Milky Way galaxy alone, and possibly 100 sextillion (that’s the number 1 followed by 23 zeros) stars in the entire universe.

The creation numbers are staggering, incomprehensible and unfathomable. I mean, how can God use so few words to create so much? Each step in the creation process is an understatement of Biblical proportions.

If it were me, I’d be holding press conferences, bragging, and posting millions of selfies on the internet to draw attention to myself and what I had done. But God? Not so much. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). One of those divine qualities is humility, since He let His creation speak about Him. No boasts. No need for attention. No grandiose verbiage.

And His humility was on display that first Christmas Day. Rather than choosing to make a lavish and impressive show to accompany the birth of His son - the King of Kings and Lord of Lords - God chose the humblest surroundings. Surroundings unworthy of someone destined to change the course of world history. Surroundings that were probably dark, dirty, and reeked of manure, since Mary placed the baby Jesus in a feeding trough (Luke 2:7). And instead of splashing the news all over the world, angels announced the birth to shepherds, one of the humblest professions (Luke 8-15).

We often get confused when our expectations are not met, something I’m always reminded of at Christmas. This Christmas, remember that flashy, glitzy, attention-grabbing events and gifts may not be nearly as meaningful or profound as something simple and understated. Consider the example of God, who created a sextillion things with a few words, and changed the world with an infant.