Born From Nothing

All creation is born from nothing. This applies not only to the creation of the earth, which was “desolate and empty” before the Creator brought light into the darkness— it applies to anything that is truly new. Every person has the task of co-creating in this radical meaning of the word. “Whoever does not also create is a deserter of creation.” (Gerrit Komrij). Only that which is created from emptiness, from nothingness, has a right to exist in the future. Results from the past provide no guarantee for the future. This is what makes the world we live in so unpredictable.

Easter is the beginning of a new creation with the goal of a new heaven and a new earth. The empty tomb is a visible sign of this creation from nothing. However, the reality of the resurrection goes much further and deeper than nothingness. If the first creation was a creatio ex nihilo, this second is a creatio ex morte. The Risen One makes the hidden treasures of darkness visible. “I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever. I hold the keys of death and the underworld.” (Revelation 1:18). Since his death and resurrection, it is not only the experience of death that has changed: in Christ we die, and the underworld with which we are often confronted in our time has also been thoroughly changed.

Wherever we find ourselves, the Risen One has gone before us in the realm of death and the underworld.


Image Lichthaut [Luminous Skin], Gilda Bartel, Collage, 2023/24. Dried flowers, pigmented tracing paper, thread.

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