A Land God Cares For ...
October 13, 2006, 12:14 AM | Permalink
"It
is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of
the Lord you God are continually on it from the
beginning of the year to its
end."
(Deuteronomy 11:11-12)
Sunset over fields near Lewisburg, Pennsylvania,
October 12, 2006, 6:30 pm.
Click on image to bring up a really cool QuickTime
movie which you can
scroll through a 180-degree panorama of the scene
with your mouse.
|
Envisioning a Redeemed Creation
June 30, 2006, 11:58 PM | Permalink
This, then, is the meaning of human presence in the cosmos. To be with one who unites.
To be in Christ, bridging the divine and the human, the Creator and the Creation, the spiritual and the scientific. If Christians around the world awaken to the moral, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of the environmental crises, there is hope for planet Earth. It is a living hope, rooted in a belief and faith in Jesus Christ and his ability to work in and through each of us (1 Peter 1:3-9). Survival and pursuit of a comfortable life are not the central issues, especially who believe that care of Creation is a joyful, praising service and that history has to come to an end some time. For Christians, the personal enemies are sin and death – death of the race, death of the planet, and personal death – or evil and loss of being. But these are precisely the enemies that have been faced and overcome by the cross and resurrection of Christ.
Christians today live to affirm and advance the opposites of sin and death – that is righteousness (justice) and life. We can face the environmental crises calmly and without panic, but this does not absolve us from the responsibility to join the fight against the powers of darkness and death. We have to identify these powers in a fresh way, name them, challenge them, and overcome them. Christ has, through his church, commanded us to overcome evil with good, death with life. We need not only to call evil by its name, but also to work with God to create the good. We are aware of the deadly threats which humanity is facing today. But God is a God of life who will not abandon the work of God’s hands. Rather, God calls us to abandon the ways of injustice, violence and exploitation. God’s call for conversion is the door of life.
And what about the future? The Biblical visions of a redeemed and restored creation often make special note of the security and well-being of children. Isaiah foresees a time when even the most vulnerable children, nursing babes and toddlers, play safely in the presence of the asp and the adder (Isaiah 11:8.) “People will no longer labor in vain or bear children for calamity, but they and their descendants yet to come shall be blessed by the Lord” (Isaiah 65:23.)
Zechariah has a vision of a restored Jerusalem where old men and women sit on their porches and the city is full of boys and girls playing safely in the streets (Zechariah 8:5.)
A Kingdom Perspective of Creation
May 20, 2006, 11:50 PM | Permalink
This assertion about the goodness of God’s created world, leads to the second fundamental tenet of Israelite faith: God as Creator is sovereign over what has been created. “ The world stands firm; it cannot be shaken. Your throne stands firm from of old; from eternity You have existed.” (Psalms 93:1b,2). This verse illustrates two Biblical precepts that run parallel to each other: (1) the orderliness of Creation and (2) God’s lordship over Creation. Order in the universe and God’s lordship go hand in hand. This is also apparent in Psalms 74:12-17.
We Are Only Sojourners. God as Creator also implies that what God created belongs to God. Everything is part of His kingdom. Psalm 24:1-2, is perhaps, the most familiar passage establishing God’s ownership of Creation: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein; for he has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the rivers.” God’s ownership of Creation is, in turn, basic to the biblical concepts of justice. This is exemplified in the Jubilee legislation – laws calling for land redistribution.
“But the land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with me. And in all the country you possess, you shall grant a redemption of the land.” (Leviticus 25:23-24).
People may use God’s land, but they do not own it.
The Bible, then, depicts for us the Kingdom perspective of Creation – God as creator who brings about an orderliness which is good. God relates to the whole Creation as its sovereign and owner (Deuteronomy 10:14; Psalm 24:1; 1 Cor. 10:26). Creation in turn relies upon God for its continuation and gives water and food to all creatures (Psalm 104; Acts 14:17).
