As I write this, it is an exceptionally warm day in early spring; so warm that we may actually break a longstanding 100+ year-old record for the warmest day. Spring is here. I have been marveling at the beauty of this season – and so very early this year! Many of the flowers that we normally expect in April came out in their glory in the month of March, and so everything has arrived earlier than what we are used to. Some years are like that. For me, there is something energizing to be working outside in the soil and with plants. The pulsing life force that erupts from the earth into shoots and leaves and blooms is a song in nature – a song without words, but a song nonetheless. It is a song to the God of all creation.
Recently, I came across something written many years ago by a Czech priest, Pius Parsch (1884-1954), that speaks to this song in nature at this time of year:
Spring with its transformation of hill and meadow, is, accordingly, a great symbol of an event in sacred history and of an event now taking place within the church. Springtime is nature executing her Easter liturgy. Neither poetry not art can even approximate her grand display. In every corner of her vast cathedral a thousand voices are shouting Alleluia, the voices of creatures that have come to life. Yes, nature holy, sinless, eternal is holding her Easter rites. Oh, that we had eyes to see this mystery! (An Easter Sourcebook: The Fifty Days. Edited by Gabe Huck, Gail Ramshaw and Gordon Lathrop. Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1988; 10).
If we are serious that God has indeed “made me and all creatures,” as we confess in Luther’s Explanation of the First Article of the Creed, then there is a holy unity that God originally intended between ourselves and every living thing. At creation, God tasked Adam to “have dominion over” all things (Genesis 1:28-30). The word “dominion” comes from the Latin dominus, meaning “lord, master.” Our Lord and Master has called us to be his own representatives in managing what belongs to him. We answer not just to ourselves, but to God, in matters of how we are stewarding his creation. We reap the consequences of our own greed and foolishness when we exploit God’s good creation for selfish gain. God called Adam to be caretaker in the garden which He had made (Genesis 2:15). All of this is found in Scripture before the fall into sin (Genesis 3:1ff.), which means that this ordering and connection of created life was unstained by sin at its beginning.
Again, if we are serious about what Scripture tells us, then what Paul the apostle writes in Romans 8 means that there is a holy connection between us and every living thing as this pertains to the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ:
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:19-23)
Jesus’ Easter victory over sin and death is good news, not just for us, but for all of creation. To be sure, we have been redeemed through cleansing blood of Jesus, as Scripture makes abundantly clear. But there is a cosmic dimension to the redeeming work of Jesus that impacts all of creation, not just us as human beings. The whole creation is, like us, in need of being set free from its bondage to corruption.
As Paul writes above, the whole creation was drawn into a downward, deathward spiral through Adam and Eve’s original sin. That original sin has been compounded throughout our human history as we have devised new ways to ravage and pollute the earth, sea and sky. God’s good creation is extraordinarily resilient and has often been able to heal itself. But this resiliency and ability to heal is being severely tested. Whatever the future holds in this regard, we can be sure that the outcome, whether for good or for ill, will affect every living thing. This is a call for each of us, wherever God has placed us in life, to be mindful of this intimate connection that exists between all of creation.
Within the Easter season that parallels the season of new life that is spring, a hymn that celebrates this interconnectedness between all of creation is “Oh, That I Had a Thousand Voices” (Lutheran Service Book #811). The hymn writer, a German Lutheran pastor named Johann Mentzner (1658-1734), writes beautifully of “nature celebrating her Easter liturgy” in several stanzas of this hymn:
Oh, that I had a thousand voices
To praise my God with thousand tongues!
My heart, which in the Lord rejoices,
Would then proclaim in grateful songs
To all, wherever I might be,
What great things God has done for me.
You forest leaves so green and tender
That dance for joy in summer air,
You meadow grasses, bright and slender,
You flow’rs so fragrant and so fair,
You live to show God’s praise alone,
Join me to make His glory known.
All creatures that have breath and motion,
That throng the earth, the sea, the sky,
Come, share with me my heart’s devotion,
Help me to sing God’s praises high.
My utmost pow’rs can never quite
Declare the wonders of His might.
Over the great fifty days of Easter, take time to immerse yourself in the wonder and beauty of God’s good creation. Rejoice in bird song and plant life that declare God’s praise. Give thanks for bright sunshine and refreshing rain. Marvel at the signs of life that are all around you. This is life, reminding us of that full and abundant life (John 10:10) which our risen Savior has brought us through his life, death and resurrection. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!