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The Resurrection and Creation
"Many indeed are the miracles of that time: God crucified; the sun darkened and again rekindled; for it was fitting that the creatures should suffer with their Creator; the veil rent; the Blood and Water shed from His Side; the one as from a man, the other as above man; the rocks rent for the Rock's sake; the dead raised for a pledge of the final Resurrection of all men; the Signs at the Sepulchre and after the Sepulchre, which none can worthily celebrate; and yet none of these equal to the Miracle of my salvation. A few drops of Blood recreate the whole world, and become to all men what rennet is to milk, drawing us together and compressing us into unity." St. Gregory the Theologian "A few drops of blood recreate the whole world," as St. Gregory the Theologian says. Which of us has actually looked at the resurrection like that? Red to Green. The death of Christ to the Greening of Creation. Pascha is a New Spring not just for humanity but for the whole of creation. This message is sorely needed today when creation under godless human hands is being turned brown by greed and neglect. There can be little doubt that an important factor in the human rape of nature has been the erroneous view that the earth is fallen, intractable, a threat, something to be tamed. Religiously, this is the legacy of considering Man’s experience of Creation after his expulsion from the Garden of Eden but before or apart from the recreation of the world in Christ. The curse experienced by Adam and recorded in Genesis 1:17 …. "… cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life" … but this is not the final word for those who know that Creation itself has been touched by the resurrection of Christ. It is not humanity alone that has been delivered from bondage and the corruption of death but, through Man as priest, the whole Creation is to be transformed in a manner described by St. Paul …. "the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God." (Romans 8:21) Instead of this glorious vision of a New Creation for the world as well as for Man, western Christianity has largely left Creation out of the sphere of redemption. Its understanding of salvation has been falsely spiritualised to the neglect of the material world. Of course a reaction did set in to all of this in the 19th century. Poets of a romantic, idealist mentality praised Creation as if it was God rather than His handiwork. This is most evident in Wordsworth for example whose nature mysticism led him far away from Christianity. New Age folk and neo-pagans are the inheritors of this tradition today. It’s understandable I suppose if people react to the atrocious effects of Man’s attempt to master Creation by subordinating themselves to it - or should we say "her?" However, a true understanding of Creation for Christians cannot be based either on an attempt either to master the material world or to worship it. The Orthodox way is to make it possible for people to return to Eden, not as if the fall had not happened, but in order to live out fully the resurrection life. In this resurrection life the fall into death has itself been destroyed and a restored harmonious relationship with Nature has again been made possible. The model for this restored harmony is to be found in Genesis before the fall and in Revelation at the End of time. In Genesis we read that God put Adam and Eve into the Garden to "till it and keep it." (Genesis 2:15). The God-in-breathed body that is Man received his priesthood to care for and relate to Creation as God’s steward, his gardener. He forsook that gardening priesthood through disobedience; but, and this is crucial, he regained it in Christ. Will he forsake it again? The parable of the wicked husbandmen (Matthew 21:33-43) is a warning against complacency in this regard. If we reject the message of the Prophets and the Son of Life Himself we shall have no part in the Kingdom of God. In Revelation we read of the therapeutic role of the New Jerusalem, the New Temple which is the Church. The baptismal flood, picking up a prophetic theme from Ezekiel, irrigates the whole World. "Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." (Revelation 22:1-2) There is no division here between salvation and creation. The whole Cosmos is transformed by the paschal victory of Christ, not just humanity. Now all of this could just be an interesting and inspiring idea if it were not for the fact that the renewal of creation lies at the very heart of Orthodox faith, life and experience. For shining exemplars of this we need look no further than the Saints who dedicated themselves to living this life to the full. They remind us of the life that we could all be living with sufficient single-minded faith and dedication. Dear to our own land is St. Guthlac, a 7th Century warrior of the Mercian king Ethelred who in his early 20’s was overcome by a sense of the futility of war. He retired as a hermit into the Cambridgeshire Fens at Crowland to do battle instead with the powers and principalities of darkness. He emerged, like the great St. Antony before him, victorious, a person recreated by the Holy Spirit. The records show that he had an intense familiarity with the natural world. Birds and other wild creatures came to him, and not just to be fed. He could exercise authority wisely, most notably by his banishing of vermin from the village of Fishtoft, simply by his word. His life was and is not the only witness. St. Seraphim of Sarov befriended a wild bear. Many know of St. Francis, not himself an Orthodox Saint, but surely close to our tradition in this respect. There are many, many more examples. The lesson we derive from all of these saints is that a proper relationship to the natural world only comes with spiritual effort and great labour. Merely loving Nature or passing laws to protect her is necessary but not enough. If humankind is to find its rightful and harmonious place within Creation it must set about the task self-mastery by the power and operation of the Holy Spirit. We must set aside our egos, our lust for power and control for the sake of Him who set aside all these things for the love of the whole World, the Cosmos. We must measure up to the status and dignity God gave us in the beginning as priests of Creation. If we do not do all these things, then even what we have will be taken away, and once again, dust and toil will be our lot. If we do what God requires of us then Eden will return and the whole Cosmos will achieve its own resurrection through us, the children of the Risen Christ. |
