Thought for Today
Deuteronomy 1:11 May the LORD, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand times more and bless you, as he has promised you!
Psalm 107:38 By his blessing they multiply greatly, and he does not let their cattle decrease.
Matthew 24:12 And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold.
John 3:30 He must increase, but I must decrease."
“Entropy is a scientific concept, most commonly associated with states of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynamics, where it was first recognized, to the microscopic description of nature in statistical physics, and to the principles of information theory.” (en.wikipedia.org)
Sadly, not everyone is blessed to study thermodynamics; and of those who are so blessed, only a few of us were able to attend elite engineering schools like the Cullen College of Engineering at the University of Houston. (plug for my alma mater). I cannot imagine that any seminary offers a class in thermodynamics or that the concept of entropy is ever broached in any seminary class.
I could not help but think about entropy, however, as I continued to ponder on yesterday’s writings about rage baiting. I wrote yesterday: “in a world where children anywhere or any time go to bed hungry there is a place for rage, for raging against the dying of the light. In a world where hate, prejudice and injustice are commonplace, there is a place for rage, for raging against the dying of the light.” I still believe that to be true.
I also wrote, however, “Anger and rage-filled thoughts, words and actions have become ubiquitous in human society recently. The trend even seems to me to be increasing.” This morning, as I continue to fret about the world around me, I wonder whether or not the concept of entropy can be applied to societies and civilizations. Are rage baiting and the increasing public displays of anger and rage symptoms of an entropic devolution in our society?
The word entropy does not appear in the Bible. The Bible does speak about increasing and about decreasing. I find it interesting that increasing appears more than a dozen times, increase appears up to 80 times depending on translation, but decreasing does not appear and decrease only appears 3 times. Is the Bible anti-entropic?
Possibly only an engineer could find this entropic concept applicable to scripture. Engineering does teach folks to think in specific patterns and to approach problem solving in specific ways. But I do see the overall arc of scripture to progress from states of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty toward states of order and certainty.
Sunday we lit the Advent candle of Hope. Next Sunday we will light the Advent candle of Peace. Recently we have seen the world around us progress from states of war in 2 locales toward the hope of peace in both. There is a fragile ceasefire in the Middle East and active peace negotiations going on to resolve the invasion of Ukraine. There is hope of peace.
As I study and as I read the Bible, I see the inevitable progression from “Genesis 1:2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters” toward Jesus’ own words about the Kingdom of God. I think of the Kingdom of God as that for which we pray when we say, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
These next few weeks we will continue to progress through lighting the candles of Joy, Love, and finally in our faith tradition, on Christmas Eve we will light the Christ Candle. As we anticipate and then celebrate the Incarnation, maybe we can think of the most definitive anti-entropic verse in the Bible, “Luke 2:40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.” As John wrote, “1:4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
Movement not toward states of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty, but movement toward God. There is Hope; there is Peace; there is Joy; and, there is Love.
Stay safe, have hope, trust God,
Pastor Ray