A messenger comes to Mary, a strange greeting: hail, favoured one, the Lord is with you. And then invites her to participate in the process of bringing God into the world.

The creator of all taking on human flesh, the incarnate Son of God. The creator of everything – the stars, the seas, the earth – enters history as a little infant, born of Mary. The one who will bring about redemption and reconciliation of all things enters a relationship of interdependence, vulnerability and humanness. Starting from that place of dependence where all human relationships begin, carried by Mary during her pregnancy, born dependent – needing family and relationships to care for all his needs.

Christ is born in Bethlehem.

When we consider just the incarnation and Jesus’s infant birth, it’s wild to think about the need for these relationships, in a human sense, and it should draw our awe and wonder. And I wonder what happens if we expand our frame to see the broader web of relationships that are needed for Jesus, this babe in Bethlehem, to be fully alive, fully human.

Just imagine, for a second, the microscopic level, the formation of the gut biome. It begins from birth and is essential for the wellbeing of a human being. The gut biome is that community of bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microbes (a thousand different types, trillions of microorganisms) that live in our intestines. This ecosystem is at work hidden inside us, breaking down food, supporting our immune system, and even affecting our mental health. It’s a key part of our body that is also not our body. The gut biome is an ecological system contained in our own organs, shaped and formed by our relationship with the world around us, our family, our ecosystem and our diet. Just imagine Jesus’s gut biome shaped by that manger, by Mary and Joseph, and the family and the air of Bethlehem, all shaping this invisible microscopic eco-community within an infant.

Or imagine the broader geography and ecological system that sustains all of life. Just think about what Jesus ate and how it connected him to animals and grains, vegetables and fruits, wine and water, and even the economic relationships between humans. All of those relationships shaped by the geography and watershed, seasons and weather. Starting from Bethlehem to his time as a refugee in Egypt, back to Nazareth, and throughout his ministry journeys, the Incarnate One lived in places that shaped his reality. Jesus was always integrated into a broader ecosystem, a network of relationships of interdependence. Human, animal, plant, mineral and even the waters all intimately connected through the ordinary actions of life.

St. Athanasius of Alexandria wrote, “He became what we are that he might make us what he is.” (On the Incarnation, 54:3) Which is to say that Christ takes on the fullness of human experience, and all the same dependencies and interrelated relationships, and then shows us, invites us and transforms us into a more excellent way. St. Basil, in one of his prayers, asks, “O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our [siblings] the animals to whom you gave the earth as their home in common with us.” And we might even go beyond that as we consider the incarnation and its relationship with all creation, as St. Francis’s canticle evokes the relationship we have with all creatures.

It’s here in the person of Jesus that we see God’s action enfleshed. And yes, it is in the stories of the gospels, in the cross and resurrection, but also in and through the incarnation in its ordinary and its extraordinary ways that we are invited to contemplate and be transformed. The physical reality, the matter of the world, is not in opposition to this revelation but is the very place where we encounter God’s love at work. Anglican eco-theologian Norman Wirzba writes, “The incarnation is God’s affirmation that creaturely life is good, that the world is not an obstacle to God’s purposes but the very place where God’s love is made manifest.” (Food and Faith, pg. 106)

As we see this reality of God’s love present in the incarnation, it reminds us that the incarnation shows us that God can work through the whole of creation. It reminds us of the importance of all these complex relationships and interdependencies that are at the heart of our human experience and our creaturely experience.

At a more profound level, the incarnation, God taking on human flesh, is not just about God becoming human, but God becoming part of creation. In Jesus, we see God’s declaration, God’s love enacted, and we can see that matter matters. God’s saving work in the incarnation is not just for humans but is about all of creation.

As we dwell with this mystery, it invites us to consider how we are connected, as well, to all of creation, to see in our own lives and experiences how we are related and interconnected. And it should ask us questions about how the love of God calls us to care, love and protect creation in all of our lives.

In this season of Advent and Christmas, we look back at the expectant waiting, the longing and hope for this incarnation. We celebrate the mystery of the incarnation, that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In our lives, we also look at our world with the same longing and hope for Christ’s return that will set all things right.

And while many of us think about salvation in the frame of our humanity, maybe this Advent and Christmas we might expand our view. What happens if we consider the mystery of the incarnation as a pattern of relationship, one that invites us to live more deeply in that hope of reconciliation, not just with ourselves and God, and other humans, but with all of creation? Perhaps we will see how our faith draws us to love more deeply, and encounter God’s presence meeting us in and through creation as well.

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He told us how amazed he was, that first year in New York, walking to church on Easter Sunday and noticing that blossoms had appeared on the trees almost overnight, feeling the warmth of the sun for the first time after a long winter, hearing the birds sing, witnessing tulips and daffodils springing up from earth that looked cracked and barren. He experienced the beginning of Eastertide very differently when he could suddenly see, hear, smell and feel the new life of creation all around him.

He wrote a song in response, which I still listen to every Easter season. During the Covid lockdowns, as I ventured out on my daily walk around my local park, I would play this song at full volume through my headphones, reminding myself to pay attention to the signs of spring beginning to appear – a little later here in Toronto than in New York – noticing the buds on the trees, the green shoots poking up through the ground, singing at the top of my voice:

The winter is o’er
Chase away old thoughts of sadness and fear
The Saviour who rose
Calls us to resurrect hope and good cheer

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! The winter is o’er

New hope has arrived
Smelling of springtime as flowers appear
The promise of life
Blooms from the barren and frost-bitten earth 

Springtime is here
The rolled away stone, the victorious Son
Death could not hold him down
Tore up the broken ground
Jesus our Lord overpower’d the grave

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Jesus is risen

In those days when regular routines of worship were disrupted, this became my Easter ritual, singing and walking in creation, trying to instill hope into my body. And as I visited the same park daily and paid attention to the changing seasons around me more closely than ever before, I started to wonder what Jesus’ death and resurrection means for creation.

As a child in Sunday School, I memorized John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son,” but somehow “the world” always meant “people.” In my evangelical upbringing, I understood that God loved people so much that Jesus died on the cross in our place, so that we could be forgiven and one day escape this world to go to heaven. Only later did I begin to wonder what it meant that God so loved the world.

If God’s love for all creation resulted in the incarnation, then Jesus’ death and resurrection brings redemption to the whole earth, not just to human beings. If the events we celebrate at Easter signal the beginning of the redemption and restoration of all creation, then we should not expect to escape from this world. Instead, Easter reminds us that one day the whole earth will be restored, and all creation will be set free from suffering and decay and worship the creator.

In this Easter season, as we witness signs of resurrection in creation all around us, let us repent from the ways we have destroyed and polluted God’s creation and re-commit ourselves to praying and working for the restoration of all things.

The post Finding Easter hope for creation appeared first on The Toronto Anglican.

The liturgies of Holy Week remind us of our Christian identity that is grounded in a particular place and at a particular time in history. And if we are open to it, Holy Week can ground us in creation, the landscape upon which the original story and the places where we are situated today unfold. It presents us with an opportunity to experience creation as an integral part of our life as disciples of Christ.

In his book A Christian Theology of Place, Bishop John Inge defines place as “the seat of relations or the place of meeting and activity in the interaction between God and the world.” He argues that “God relates to people in places, and the places are not irrelevant to that relationship but, rather, are integral to divine human encounter.” Place not only includes relationships with each other, but also with the land and the natural world. The relationships and activities occur in place, which unfolds in creation.

Place is an integral part of Christian discipleship. It is more than the landscape upon which we worship or the neighbourhoods within which we minister. It is both a physical reality and an internal orientation that longs for relationship rooted in God. Unfortunately, many Christians treat worldly and spiritual matters as distinct and separate realities. This has contributed to us treating our relationships with the natural world as separate and distinct from our relationship with God and our neighbourhoods.

Our current liturgical framework for Holy Week has its origin in fourth-century Jerusalem. Called the Great Week, the final days of Jesus’ life were shared and embodied through stational liturgy. Each day worshippers walked from place to place, church to church throughout Jerusalem, marking the moments of Jesus’ final days. On Palm Sunday, worshippers began their day at the Anastasis (the place of the resurrection), moved to the Martyrium (the tomb), returned to the Anastasis, gathered for a vigil at Eleona (Mount of Olives), walked to the Imbomon (the place of the ascension), then walked from the summit of the Mount to the city and from there through the whole city to the Anastasis. On that day alone, worshippers moved between seven places in and around Jerusalem. As they walked, they prayed, sang, fasted, held silence, held all-night vigils, and walked by candlelight. This level of activity reached a climax on Good Friday with 10 stops.

As they walked, worshippers were formed by the story and became physically, emotionally and spiritually connected to the place of the story. In addition to seeing the buildings, markets and people, they became aware of the natural world in which the story unfolded. They walked on rocky and hilly ground, felt the daytime heat and the chill of cold evenings, their eyesight adjusted to the brilliance of the sun and the sparkling of the stars, and they took refuge from the sun under trees and shrubs. The geography of Jerusalem was a formational part of the liturgies of Holy Week.

The Jesus story extends beyond Jerusalem into our places. Our identity as followers of Jesus is deeply connected to the place of Jesus’ life, as well as to place in which we live and move and have our being. Holy Week is an invitation to connect the Jesus story to our experience of God in the places in which we are each situated.

What if we remembered Jesus’ torture, death and resurrection as we walked in our places, while being mindful of our green spaces and their connection (or disconnection) with urban spaces, of the broken and wounded parts of nature and our communities, of those who call our places home?  Perhaps this may help to recapture the significance of place, of the natural world. Perhaps our identity as disciples becomes grounded not only in Jerusalem but also here and now.

This Holy Week, I invite you into a sacred walk. If you can, walk each day of the week. As you walk, recall Jesus’ final days and pay attention to the ground under your feet, to the buildings and roadways, to the trees, the grass (or maybe snow or rain), any creatures, the birdsong, to the people you pass. Notice how this place and the creation upon which it sits connect to the Jesus story. Notice how God is speaking to you in this place.

Blessed walking.

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As a relative newcomer to Canada, winter is something I am still getting used to. Being from the UK, I should be accustomed to grey skies and short winter days. Yet I always feel a sense of dread as winter approaches, as I pull out my ‘SAD’ lamp in preparation for the drop in energy I experience, and the cold, dark mornings. This is my fifth winter in Canada, but I am still surprised by it. I am surprised by the extreme cold snaps, the unexpected thaws, the heavy snowfalls, those beautiful freezing days of blue sky and bright sunshine. And I am surprised by the stillness. The absence of bird song, the inactivity of the raccoons in my garden and the cats in my house. There are no leaves to rustle on the trees, there are no ripples on a frozen lake.

I wonder if I dread the winter because I am not very good at stillness. If I made the rules, it would always be summer, and life would always be full – full of people, events, work, social commitments, travel. If I could, I would skip winter completely and jump straight into spring.

As a city dweller, I can too easily become disconnected from the natural cycles of the earth. I can forget that each season is necessary for life. The natural seasons of our world, the short days and the longer nights – they are necessary. Trees cannot blossom or produce fruit all year round. Leaves must fall to the ground and die in order for new life to begin. Animals hibernate, retreating into a safe dark place until spring. Winter is a season when creation slows down, rests, regenerates.

This winter I have been trying to learn from the stillness of creation.

Maybe I should not expect to have the same energy and pace of life in winter as I do in summer. Maybe human beings were made to join with the rest of creation in moving through the natural seasons. Seasons of energy and growth, blossom and fruitfulness, seasons of death and rebirth, rest and stillness. Maybe, for humans too, winter can be a season of rest, regeneration and renewal. In the darkness of the earth seeds germinate, begin to grow. Our bodies, too, can rest in the quiet darkness.

In a culture that treats people who are more productive as more valuable, and views busyness as a badge of honour, learning to rest can be a radical act. Activist Tricia Hersey, founder of The Nap Ministry, says that “rest is resistance.” That cultivating a deliberate practice of slowing down and choosing rest is an act of resistance against capitalism and white supremacy, systems that treat human bodies as tools for production and labour and that are driving the planet to exhaustion. She says, “I took to rest and naps and slowing down as a way to save my life, resist the systems telling me to do more… Rest pushes back and disrupts [these] systems. It is a counter narrative.”

Choosing to rest can be an act of resistance against systems that extract labour and resources from human bodies and from creation until there is nothing left. Creation teaches us that rest is necessary for regeneration and renewal. Winter reminds us that it is not natural to produce fruit all year round.

This winter I am trying to learn from creation.

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There is a deepening awareness that there is more to the Incarnation than a focus on the historical Jesus. There are a plethora of theologians and clerics from across Christian denominations (Niels Gregersen, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Sallie McFague and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, to name just a few) who invite us to ponder how creation itself is enfolded into the Incarnation.

In the Word made flesh, we see the embodied expression of creation. Elizabeth A. Johnson puts it this way: “the Word of God’s embodied self became a creature of Earth, a complex unit of minerals and fluids, an item in the carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen cycles, a moment in the biological evolution of this planet. Jesus carried within himself ‘the signature of the supernovas and the geology and life history of the Earth.’”

In the Incarnation, science and faith intersect. The Gospel of John invites us into the deep mystery of the Incarnation in which creation is embedded into Christ’s nature. Creation emerges through him, “all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (John 1:3). In addition, Christ is made of the material of creation, “and the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14a).

Can this understanding of the Incarnation can help us to see and experience the Earth as sacred? Can it help us to respond differently to the challenges facing the planet? Can it foster the emergence of an ecological ethic that transforms us into a voice of the planet and into good stewards of the Earth?

Advent is the perfect season to ponder these questions as we prepare to celebrate the inbreaking of God into the world over 2,000 years ago, and as we wait for Christ to break into our lives and the world in new ways.

One of our travelling companions during Advent is the prophet Isaiah. Speaking to the Israelites who have lost their way and are on the brink of catastrophe, he reminds them that idolatry is a path that leads only to self-destruction. Isaiah attempts to redirect them to the alternative path of hope and justice promised by God. For him, God is a God of hope, compassion, justice, peace, mercy, consolation and comfort.

During the second Sunday of Advent, we hear Isaiah say, “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins” (Isaiah 40:1-2).

Isaiah calls out to us to turn to God and all will be well, because God who comforts us is with us.

Does God’s comfort include the Earth and its burning forests, its drying lakes, its endangered species, its flooded communities, its arid soil, its rising sea levels, its warming climate, its marginalized and vulnerable people?

What if the mystery unfolding for us in Advent is a new awareness that creation is enfolded into the Incarnation? What if this Advent we prepared our hearts to enter into the mystery of a deepening incarnation in which God’s breaking into the world extends into material existence?

What if in the Incarnation we see God’s love imprinted in nature? Might we begin to see that we are called to be a consoling and comforting presence to the Earth as Jesus is to us?

This Advent, may we awaken to a new awareness of the sacredness of the Earth.

Creation Matters is a new column in The Anglican.

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