If the tone of this post displeases you, please consider that fair warning was given...I'm returning to just plain ol' blogging, so that I can write about whatever I want.
Earth Day and Good Friday, on the same day. And me working at Starbucks this year, where the most important thing is to minimize my "impact".
I logged on to Facebook this morning and nearly all the Christians I know, from the baptists to the evangelicals to the Roman Catholics to the Presbyterians, were posting Scripture and poems and cantatas commemorating the death of Jesus. The pagans and worldlings (yes, I use that word), on the other hand, were posting nebulous and vague guilt trips on their walls. We Christians grieve a man's death with concrete joy and hope, while they celebrate "life" and feel something ambiguously but definitely discomfiting.
When we celebrate one man, we celebrate the whole world. When they celebrate the world, they end up celebrating nothing. What discomfits them is the death in the midst of all their "life"...there is nothing to affirm who they are in what they celebrate. They are simply swallowed up by what they worship, and suddenly they are nobody.
The day Christ was killed was the day the sun darkened and the earth died. On Easter Sunday it rose again. How can it make sense that the world was made new with one man? Because personal relationship is what gives this universe meaning. God made the world; God maintains the world. He gave it to us to make and to maintain as well. The earth is a garden, and is to be made a garden; it's not a force that we have to submit to. We have a responsibility to care for and tend the plants and animals of this garden, but not to bow to them.
It is a disservice to "Nature" to try to treat it as a person. The U.N. calls Earth Day "Mother Earth Day". It's not a mother; it's not a person. We Christians say that the Church is our Mother. In the Old Testament God's people were constantly being told stories of their Mother, the nation of Israel, and her relationship with God their Father. Our Father is personal (with Three Persons), and our Mother is personal (with many persons). "Nature" is not personal at all. There is no "Nature" (although there is "nature"). There are dogs and palm trees and azaleas and tobacco and seals and springboks and ladybugs and hummingbirds. There are things we can relate to...you have a relationship with your goldfish, or your stoop-garden oregano, or the Amazon rain-forest. You ought to honor that.
You ought to increase your impact. Your impact for love, for justice, for mercy. For responsibility, for feasting, for sobriety, for raising and rearing.
When we honor our Father and our Mother, we honor the task we've been given by them. We obey Father and Mother, and our life is long in the land. Let's tend this garden because of Father and Mother, and we and all we have been given will be richly blessed.
Psalm 24
The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place?
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.
Earth Day and Good Friday, on the same day. And me working at Starbucks this year, where the most important thing is to minimize my "impact".
I logged on to Facebook this morning and nearly all the Christians I know, from the baptists to the evangelicals to the Roman Catholics to the Presbyterians, were posting Scripture and poems and cantatas commemorating the death of Jesus. The pagans and worldlings (yes, I use that word), on the other hand, were posting nebulous and vague guilt trips on their walls. We Christians grieve a man's death with concrete joy and hope, while they celebrate "life" and feel something ambiguously but definitely discomfiting.
When we celebrate one man, we celebrate the whole world. When they celebrate the world, they end up celebrating nothing. What discomfits them is the death in the midst of all their "life"...there is nothing to affirm who they are in what they celebrate. They are simply swallowed up by what they worship, and suddenly they are nobody.
The day Christ was killed was the day the sun darkened and the earth died. On Easter Sunday it rose again. How can it make sense that the world was made new with one man? Because personal relationship is what gives this universe meaning. God made the world; God maintains the world. He gave it to us to make and to maintain as well. The earth is a garden, and is to be made a garden; it's not a force that we have to submit to. We have a responsibility to care for and tend the plants and animals of this garden, but not to bow to them.
It is a disservice to "Nature" to try to treat it as a person. The U.N. calls Earth Day "Mother Earth Day". It's not a mother; it's not a person. We Christians say that the Church is our Mother. In the Old Testament God's people were constantly being told stories of their Mother, the nation of Israel, and her relationship with God their Father. Our Father is personal (with Three Persons), and our Mother is personal (with many persons). "Nature" is not personal at all. There is no "Nature" (although there is "nature"). There are dogs and palm trees and azaleas and tobacco and seals and springboks and ladybugs and hummingbirds. There are things we can relate to...you have a relationship with your goldfish, or your stoop-garden oregano, or the Amazon rain-forest. You ought to honor that.
You ought to increase your impact. Your impact for love, for justice, for mercy. For responsibility, for feasting, for sobriety, for raising and rearing.
When we honor our Father and our Mother, we honor the task we've been given by them. We obey Father and Mother, and our life is long in the land. Let's tend this garden because of Father and Mother, and we and all we have been given will be richly blessed.
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| A painting about animals. And people. And nations. |
The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place?
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.
Amen. So be it. Thank you for this Good Friday blessing, and praise the Lord for His immense love and salvation. There is no hope, apart from Him. So be it. Amen.
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