In one of the more interesting juxtapositions of dates, today is celebrated as "Earth Day" throughout the world, while much of the world also celebrates "Good Friday." What's most interesting to me about this is the fact that many of my Christian brethren are using today to be indignant about the culture's fascination with the earth when today is supposed to be a day of solemn reflection on the death of Jesus. The "creation vs. Creator" argument is lighting up the social networks today.
I have a different take on this, however. Theologically speaking, I think it's absolutely appropriate that these two "holidays" should fall on the same day because they're really biblically symbiotic. Today, in effect, the biblical story comes to its climax in a way that should cause everyone to celebrate. Here's what I mean…
The Bible begins with the story of Creation in Genesis 1, which at every stage God calls "good." From the very beginning, we learn that the material world–the environment, plants, animals, and everything else–is blessed by God as God's own good creation. Humans, the last finishing touch on God's creation, are called "very good." They are created in God's own image, created with bodies and created to live in and have dominion over God's good creation. Creation and humanity depend on each other, and both depend on God.
Sometimes I think that Christians forget that Genesis 1 and 2 came before chapter 3–the point at which God's good creation gets abused by human sinfulness. The humans who are created in the image of God sloughed off that image in favor of becoming something less than human, and they began to see creation not as something to be stewarded, but exploited. Sin not only broke humanity's relationship with God, it also broke God's good creation. When we became less than the image of God we were intended to be, the creation suffered right along with us. Because we and the earth are so intimately tied together as God's creation, what affects the one affects the other. Paul expresses this in Romans 8:19-24–
"For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subject to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies."
To put it another way, our redemption as humanity is tied to the redemption of the whole creation. The creation is waiting for us to get our act together, and take on the vocation we were created to have from the beginning as people created in God's own image.
Of course, that's not something we've ever been able to do on our own. The brokenness of sin and the powerful consequence of death prevent us from being all we were created to be. In order for the whole creation to be redeemed, we need to be redeemed first. We are, after all, the ones who broke it and continue to do so.
That's where Good Friday comes in. The New Testament writers make their point pretty clearly–that in Jesus Christ God came into the world in person–in a body, into the midst of his creation–to redeem the whole project. John says, famously, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but have everlasting life. Indeed, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:16-17).
This is the project that Jesus sets out to accomplish–a project that comes to its climax on a hill outside Jerusalem. Jesus is nailed to a cross, suffering evil at the hands of broken humanity. He dies in the most shameful of ways as a testament to the violence and grief of death that comes as the result of human frailty and brokenness. He dies at the hands of the very people he is trying to save, and forgives them while they kill him. He dies because he loves them, and you, and me, and the good world he created. This, he understands, is the only way to begin making it all good again.
That's why we call today Good Friday, and that's why Earth Day is perfect for today as well. God so loved the world…we should, too.
