How Good Friday and Earth Day Collide

A devotional I presented on 22 April, Earth Day and Good Friday

Today is a collision of two contradictions. Today marks the death of Christ which is also a beginning. Today also marks a date designed for remembrance, education, and recommitting to honor what God bestowed upon us, the gift of our planet earth. It seems an appropriate time to note a passage in Revelation 21 where John recounts his vision encounter with God.

“And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new...these words are faithful and true....I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.

Today represents the end, the end of the Old Testament, the end of a sacrificial system, the end of a covenant made centuries ago on Mount Sinai. But individuals living on that day didn't know that. Instead, they saw a cruel and perhaps unnecessary death of a revolutionary who never actually launched his revolution. Today, was a day when everyone lost all hope. Today was a horrible demonstration of oppressive death practices instituted by an oppressive and foreign occupier. The native religious establishment demanded the occupying political forces maintain the delicate status quo. They tricked the occupiers into believing this revolutionary was a threat to the occupiers, when in fact he was a threat to their religious hold on society. Did anyone truly understand what was happening that day? Did anyone know that this was the hardest step in the process of “making all things new?” Or did they only see the barbaric death of an unfinished and perplexing revolutionary? What emotions ran through the minds of speculators over 2000 years ago? Hopelessness. Despair. Frustration. Anger.

It seems awkward to draw parallels between the Death of Christ and a 1970s date set aside to celebrate planet earth. Yet aren’t they both dates to remind us of imperfection and sorrow? Aren’t they both some sort of call to action? Aren’t both dates indirect reminders what something needs to be made new? The church and even wider society is opening their eyes to the destruction of the earth around us. We’ve been given a gift of home and habitat, and yet we treat one of our most precious gifts like one of those nasty cheap disposable plastic bags that fill gutters, trees, landfills and make wonderfully toxic fires.

Today is just one reminder of many that we can no longer afford to be irresponsible. We can no longer live a lifestyle that doesn’t acknowledge our finite resources. We are being forced to look beyond our lifespans and plan for a responsible future. We are living in an era of challenging Good Fridays as we watch the earth’s beauty and resources slip away. We’re being asked to look ahead to an era of Sundays where this exploitation and irresponsibility has ended. We’re learning we can take part in a growing counterculture movement that emphasize simplicity over indulgence. We are able to take part in the reconciliation of land, of preserving beauty, of taking responsibility for our actions individually and corporately, of living at peace with God and creation. Today is a reminder that we have a hard road ahead of us.

But what do we do on days like today? On Good Friday we can only see death, destruction, shattered hopes and dreams, our own depraved brokenness. On Good Friday, we acknowledge that we are absolutely nothing. On Good Friday we shamefully admit that we exist in unbelievable broken world so unjust that it intentionally kills divinity when divinity comes to redeem us. On Good Friday, we look at the heaps of garbage, the polluted rivers, the soaring gas prices and know we’re living unsustainably.

On a date such as today, we have the opportunity to hold the paradox of life and death, and endings and beginnings in reverence while acknowledging that we live in a broken world. Yet we believe One who promised "to make all things new" in our hearts and in the earth He created. In this year of revolutions and uprisings, we acknowledges the price of being counter-cultural, living an unpopular faith which demands the impossible of us, to love our neighbor.

The revolution seems dead on Good Friday. Yet we have the gift of hindsight and we know how the story ends. We know that our faith was made new and we know that this perplexing death provided us with reconcilation. It’s Friday, but on Sunday, we learn that when divinity crafts a global revolution, it transcends death, transcends our depravity and is unspeakably hopeful.

“And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new...these words are faithful and true....I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.”