Earth Day + Good Friday = Resurrection

Yesterday an elderly gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and smiled warmly: “Do you know what day this is?”

I knew what he meant. “Yes I do,” I said.

“It’s the most important day in the WHOLE UNIVERSE,” he said. “He did it for us. You have a wonderful weekend with your family, and remember why it’s important.”

He was kind, and I smiled and told him to do the same.

His “whole universe” language was interesting though, and fitting, given that Good Friday is also Earth Day.  Did he comprehend the ecological implications of what he was saying?  I assume not.  But I believe that Jesus came out of love for the WHOLE UNIVERSE: all of Creation.  He came to show us how to live and love and SAVE all of Creation.

I’ve gone here before…

Do I believe Jesus came specifically with the intentional mission to “die for our sins”?  This gets me into trouble, but I’m not sure that I do.  I think he came to live for us.  Did Jesus have to suffer and die?  I don’t think God demanded it.  I don’t buy into penal substitution, or even standard Christian economics of sin and forgiveness.  We assume that a price is demanded for humanity’s wickedness.  While I believe in sin (I believe in our dysfunction and our brokenness and our inherent selfishness) I do not believe God or the economy of the universe demands punishment or satisfaction.  That seems an outrageous premodern/medieval superstition that – when we step away from our traditions for just a moment – appears glaringly obvious.  There are lots of theories as to how the atonement worked: Jesus paid our ransom, took our punishment on himself, etc… but they all generally agree that sin creates a vacuum in the universe that must be filled.

BUT HERE’S WHAT I DO BELIEVE: Jesus was the Son of God, and Jesus’ murder was an inevitability, given the innate conflict between darkness and light.  Pure goodness – pure truth – in all its unassuming, counterintuitive vulnerability, lays down and dies because that’s how it demonstrates itself to be what it is.  That is how darkness is revealed to be what it is.  In this way, I agree that sin creates a vacuum in the universe: it is inherent dysfunction.  In the natural order, actions have equal, opposite reactions.  In the supernatural order, Jesus Christ’s interruption into history created an overcompensation of light that continues to grow and swell through the ages, into today.

On Earth Day (and Good Friday) we are reminded of the awesome responsibility given to us to us: the world (THE UNIVERSE) needs saving! This Sunday, Easter Sunday – RESURRECTION SUNDAY – we commemorate a tradition of overcoming death.  Of supernatural power.  Of faith in a God who transcends mortality and the constraints of the natural world.  On Easter, we are invited to participate in a movement: to resurrect humanity and our ecosystem, in a cosmos that is aching, sick, mourning, polluted, and in need of… YES!  RESURRECTION!