My "tweets" for Good Friday and Earth Day:
Don't make the earth go dark again, be Christ on this earth by caring for all of God's earth and all in God's earth. #goodfirday #earthday
If Jesus suffered & died for your sins, don't let people suffer for your food. Drink fair trade coffee @ home & church #goodfriday#earthday
Put your faith into action at church. Don't use styrofoam for coffee at church. Use mugs. Have people bring their own. #goodfriday#earthday
Broaken & multiplied loaves foreshadow Good Friday & Easter. The earth is breaking & only we can replenish it. #goodfriday #earthday
The Earth groans for salvation. It mourns w/us this Good Friday.#goodfriday #earthday
When Jesus died, the earth is said to have shaken. God & the Earth have a close relationship. Honor one, honor both. #goodfriday#goodearthday
In "Due Date," Jamie Foxx's character uses a reusable coffee filter in his home. Will you? #earthday #godsearth
When today began, I was unsure how to celebrate Earth Day and observe Good Friday. Good Friday is a somber day, a time to remember Jesus' suffering. A time to mourn Jesus' death. No death is "good." Even if good comes from a death, it is unfortunate that someone had to die. Even Jesus.
Good Friday is also a time to mourn our sins and the havoc they--no--the havoc we wreak. The wages of sin are not just death, but also the immediate consequences of our sins. If we do not take care of our body, we get sick or we die sooner than we might have otherwise. If we are cruel to someone, we receive regret and their scorn, hurt and physical and/or mental bruise
Those last examples scar me the most. When I mourn my sin, I mostly mourn how other people pay for the wages of my sins. Many commemorate Jesus as paying the price for our sins, but there are a few expenses not even Jesus could pay. If I hit someone, they still bruise. If I berate my children, they develop the psychological complexes. If I buy cheap chocolate, coffee, and tea, the people doing the most menial tasks to produce those luxuries pay the price I don't pay as their quality of life goes down. [1] The same goes for when I buy clothing produced at sweat shops, especially cheap clothing, but even many more chic, more expensive brands and stores. If I buy a lot of individually wrapped granola bars, candy bars, or fast food, the earth pays. God's earth pays. And everything on the earth pays, too. Including us.
God did not send Jesus to pay for those wages of sin. Those wages are ours to pay. So on this Good Friday and Earth Day, I thank God for Christ on the cross and the Earth we all ravage. I remember the death of Jesus and the dying of the Earth. I remember that sins cause death and sins cause suffering, not just suffering on the cross, but also suffering on this earth. And I remember that caring for the Earth is caring for people, just like loving all people is loving God.
Dear reader, I hope you have a meaningful end of your Holy Week. As we come to celebrate Easter, let us celebrate the life of Christ by being Christ, by restoring God's creation to its glory--people, animal, and earth alike.
Footnote:
[1] Christians send missionaries and mission teams to the same people who suffer from our cheap coffee, tea, chocolate, and clothing. If we send mission teams without purchasing fairly traded luxuries, then we are sending quite the mixed message. We say, essentially, that we care for their afterlife, not their current life. We say it is OK for them to suffer in this life because of us and then live beside us in the next.
