Friday December 8th:
During this week of Advent Hope, remember that God came down in Jesus to set us free. “Us” includes all of creation! He didn’t come to condemn us, to fight us, to scare us, but to love us into absolute and total freedom. He scared those that refused His love and chose to secure their place in the systemic oppression that ruled, and rules, the world. Hope is an action verb. As we hope in Jesus, get busy working and loving with the risen Christ to set others free!
The Renewal of the Whole Creation
Our final homecoming involves not just ourselves and our fellow human beings but all of creation. The full freedom of the children of God is to be shared by the whole earth, and our complete renewal in the resurrection includes the renewal of the universe. That is the great vision of God’s redeeming work through Christ.
Paul sees the whole created order as a woman groaning in labour, waiting eagerly to give birth to a new life. He writes: “It was not for its own purposes that creation had frustration imposed on it, but for the purposes of him who imposed it – with the intention that the whole creation itself might be freed from its slavery to corruption and brought into the same glorious freedom as the children of God” (Romans 8:20-21). All that God has created will be lifted up into God’s glory.
Henri Nouwen
For further reflection…
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…” – Revelation 21: 1 (NIV)