Humus

Today is Earth Day. I am humbled.

The root word of humble and human is the same: humus: earth. We are dust. We are the created.

But today is also Good Friday- the remembrance of God taking on human form, limiting Himself even  in His unlimitedness. He put on the flesh of mortality over His immortality and accepted all the pain and grief of humanity. He submitted to betrayal and was killed by it, labeled a total failure (in our terms) on a common cross between two thieves.

That is a humility and love beyond what my finite mind can comprehend.

I find comfort in remembering that even Jesus, knowing His great purpose, asked that He might be spared all of this. And the answer He got was NO. But what seems a NO  from man’s point of view is often the essential prelude to a far greater YES. The Resurrection, the healing, the promise of life is God’s YES to a broken humanity and groaning earth.

The earth really is groaning, isn’t it? We have leeched its precious resources, consumed ruthlessly, not just for the good of humanity, but for despicably gluttonous purposes. We do not share with all  God’s children. Many are starving or thirsting to death while we feast, while we waste. Shouldn’t  environmental stewardship be the natural response to the love God has shown us? Shouldn’t it be a celebration of the bountiful gifts we are given?

Maybe Earth Day and Good Friday are different expressions of the same thing: remembering who we are, being humbled by the greatness of the gifts we are given, the dirt beneath our feet, the promise of wholeness  Jesus offered that day.

I’m planning my own garden. I can hardly contain my excitement for all things green and alive after such a long winter. In some small way I am taking on the charge to co-create with my God. It’s my art- my expression of thankfulness that out of  such brokenness, out of mere dust, springs Life.

Today might be steeped in death and pain, but it is only the prelude. It is Good because we know the rest of the story.