Last week I went to hear Jo Swinney (joined by Jo Herbert James, both from A Rocha) giving a talk about her new book, The Whole Easter Story. This is a Lent devotional book which puts the cross into context with the creation story, and considers how God’s relationship with all of creation should shape our relationship with the earth and each other. Jo’s theology about faith and the environment is largely influenced by what Paul wrote in Colossians 1, 19:20: ‘For God in all His fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.’ What Jesus did on the cross was to bring restoration to the whole earth, not just to people, and therefore this should drastically shape our view of the earth in God’s eyes.
At the beginning of this year, I noticed that a lot of environmental leaders whom I look up to were sharing that they feel so disheartened and frustrated with the world right now – the year began with a host of environmental disasters, the news that 2024 was the warmest year on record, and global political changes threatening to undo so much of what environmentalists have been fighting for for decades. It’s no wonder that leaders are feeling burnt out and heartbroken. However, in the face of this, I felt a breath of hope, and God saying to me that ultimately humans are not supposed to save the world anyway: He is. The pressure is not on us to resolve everything, because that’s the point of what Jesus did for us. That’s not to belittle the work of climate leaders by any means, or to say that their work is wasted – God invariably works through people and will surely work through us again to bring about the ultimate restoration He promises. However, we should find joy in this task rather than trepidation or pressure. We should boast in our weakness and not be afraid of it, because, as my favourite Bible verse says, our weakness makes God’s power perfect (2 Corinthians 12:9).
The book launch from Jo Swinney and Jo Herbert James was timed perfectly to complement these thoughts. One thing they highlighted was the fact that caring for the environment is an act of worship. Every small thing we do to care for the earth should be seen as an act of worship to God, even if we feel it won’t make much difference in the big picture. Jo Herbert James painted a nice image of washing out a plastic yoghurt pot to be recycled and praying over it - this is such a small act, but by caring about such a small thing as a yoghurt pot, we give a beautiful demonstration of love for God’s world. Someone in the audience asked what the hardest sacrifice is for someone who aims to aims to shape their lifestyle around caring for the environment, and Jo replied that it's easy to make a big, one-off sacrifice such as deciding not taking a long-haul flight for an exotic holiday, but what's harder is the small, everyday sacrifices like how we do our shopping, our cooking, our commuting, our recycling – it’s these small, ceaseless, often guilt-inducing sacrifices which are the hardest because we have to make them even when we don’t feel like it.
Lent is perhaps a good time to think about how we can incorporate more of these small environmentally-conscious decisions into our daily lives. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, in 2021 I completely gave up buying single-use plastic during Lent, and although that lifestyle wasn’t sustainable long-term, some of the changes that I made stuck and became habit, and I still do them now without even thinking, four years later. Thankfully though, God doesn’t ask us to live ‘perfectly,’ but to live ‘faithfully’. Jo highlights that the point of Lent isn’t just to ‘do the challenge’ and survive it until we can get back to normality – if we’re honest, many of us fail our Lent challenges within days. The point is to transform and recalibrate our whole perspective of life and faith. If we put our focus on the here and now it will become pointless and frustrating – whether that’s the here and now of Lent, or of the bigger here and now of the earth we live on currently. We need to place ourselves within the whole story of the creation, the cross, and the coming new creation, and everything we do should be with that eternal perspective in mind.
As Christians we have a reason to hope – a crazy, unbelievable reason to be hopeful against all the apparent odds, and that is Jesus. Yes, God knows our heartbreak and weeps with us, but ultimately, He has already made it all better through the cross. However, there are plenty of people around us who don’t have that hope and are having to face the crises of a struggling planet on their own. I always believe that it’s therefore our duty as Jesus’ followers who have this undeserved gift of hope, to be that hope for those who don’t know Him yet – to keep fighting, and teaching, and researching, and making everyday sacrifices, and engaging with nature, and signing petitions, and planting trees, and sharing stories, and praying and fasting, and to do all this with a big smile on our faces because we get to be a part of the greatest rescue story ever in spite of our failings, and what a privilege and a wonderful joy that is.
So perhaps have a think about something you could do during Lent to recalibrate your perspective of your daily life within the bigger picture of creation and the kingdom. Maybe an experimental lifestyle change which could become a habit, or perhaps reading through Jo’s Devotional The Whole Easter Story. I hope it will be as encouraging to you as it has been to me!
Thanks v much, Abby, for your article about Lent and the BRF devotional book by Jo Swinney..What part did Jo Herbert James have in it? And what is A Rocha?
Francis Podmore