Yet somehow the mechanics of the universe and geology seems to contradict all of that?
How old did Adam appear to be one second after he was made from dust?
Exactly. If Adam had the appearance of age, the animals had the appearance of age, the trees were not seeds, but had the appearance of age, why do Christians feel the need to compromise and not see that EVERYTHING was created with the appearance of age.
The universe, on the other hand, exhibits many evidences of being billions of years old. Just to begin with, we're seeing light coming from far more than 6000 light-years away, and we know from over a dozen ways of testing it, as well as the ramifications of E=MC^2, that it's speed hasn't changed.
To say that the universe is only 6000 years old is to say that God deliberately created a lying illusion. I don't buy that.
As far as what Jesus said, the Genesis narrative is clear that God's works of creation ended with Adam and Eve, not began with them. Ergo, "beginning of creation" must likewise refer to the earliest age of creation being finished, not to day 1, and therefore has no effect on whether we read days 1-6 as being 24 hours or long ages.
Shalom