Missio Dei: WK2 - TUE
THE WHOLE CREATION IS GROANING
Romans 8:19-22 (NLT) “For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”
One afternoon during a trip to Australia, a group of us piled into a coach and drove down to the docks, where we boarded a boat and sailed out to a small island. It was one of those days that feels like a gift. We swam, we snorkeled, we ate well, we sat in the sun. Later in the afternoon, one of the chaperons told me that if we had gone just a little further out, we would have been at the edge of the Great Barrier Reef. I hadn't been close enough to see it clearly, but the remark stayed with me.
On the way back a marine biologist who had spent the better part of his career diving the reef pulled me aside. He talked about what he had watched happen to it over the decades, he told me David Attenborough had once described it as a forest after a fire. But for him it was like watching someone you love receive a terminal diagnosis. The grief in his voice was dry and belonged to someone who had given years to something and was watching it disappear.
Paul says in Romans 8 that the whole creation is groaning. Not metaphorically. He means it. The fall of humanity sent shockwaves through the created order. The world was subjected to futility, he says, not by its own choice. It is suffering consequences it did not cause, waiting for a restoration it cannot produce on its own.
What that diver felt is closer to what Paul is describing than most of our Saturday morning responses to environmental news. It is participation in creation’s groaning. It is the feeling of something being wrong that should be right.
The ecological crisis is a theological issue, not primarily a political one. We were given creation to steward, not exploit. The mandate in Genesis 1 was to rule, in the sense of protect and cultivate, not dominate. Mission that takes all of Scripture seriously cannot be indifferent to what God made and declared good. Caring for the creation is not a distraction from the gospel. It comes from the same love that drives the whole mission.
Romans 8:19-22 (NLT) “For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”
One afternoon during a trip to Australia, a group of us piled into a coach and drove down to the docks, where we boarded a boat and sailed out to a small island. It was one of those days that feels like a gift. We swam, we snorkeled, we ate well, we sat in the sun. Later in the afternoon, one of the chaperons told me that if we had gone just a little further out, we would have been at the edge of the Great Barrier Reef. I hadn't been close enough to see it clearly, but the remark stayed with me.
On the way back a marine biologist who had spent the better part of his career diving the reef pulled me aside. He talked about what he had watched happen to it over the decades, he told me David Attenborough had once described it as a forest after a fire. But for him it was like watching someone you love receive a terminal diagnosis. The grief in his voice was dry and belonged to someone who had given years to something and was watching it disappear.
Paul says in Romans 8 that the whole creation is groaning. Not metaphorically. He means it. The fall of humanity sent shockwaves through the created order. The world was subjected to futility, he says, not by its own choice. It is suffering consequences it did not cause, waiting for a restoration it cannot produce on its own.
What that diver felt is closer to what Paul is describing than most of our Saturday morning responses to environmental news. It is participation in creation’s groaning. It is the feeling of something being wrong that should be right.
The ecological crisis is a theological issue, not primarily a political one. We were given creation to steward, not exploit. The mandate in Genesis 1 was to rule, in the sense of protect and cultivate, not dominate. Mission that takes all of Scripture seriously cannot be indifferent to what God made and declared good. Caring for the creation is not a distraction from the gospel. It comes from the same love that drives the whole mission.
- What part of creation’s “groaning” feels most visible or personal to you?
- How does caring for creation connect to your understanding of God’s mission?
- What is one practical way you can steward the world around you more faithfully?
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