April 22, 2011. It is Good Friday. It is also Earth Day. I began my day thinking that these two emphases are related.
Earth Day is a call to care for the planet that sustains us. That is there an “Earth Day” exposes the truth that we have abused it and polluted it and raped it for our own purposes. We have done violence to the earth. We have sinned against it. Earth Day is a call to repentance.
Good Friday also calls us to repentance. All we like sheep have gone astray. In our arrogance and self-centeredness, we have lived for our own ends to our own destruction. Our violence against the earth is just one example. And Christ hangs on a cross, exposing our brokenness. But the One on the cross also reveals the way of restoration. We come to the cross because it is there that we can die to sin and live for righteousness. (1 Peter 2:24-25) It is at the cross that we are healed so we can live a new life–a life in restored and new relationship to God, to ourselves, to one another, and even to the planet.
40 Days Without Violence 