Friday Nudge for Good Friday: When the Earth is Being Crucified

Essay: Emboldened by Christ (book review)

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Friends, this week’s post is coming out today, on Maundy Thursday, since I along with many other Christians will be participating in Good Friday meditations and sitting at the foot of the cross. If Good Friday is something that makes you uncomfortable, let us remember that we cannot get to Easter without going through the cross. I hope that your Holy Week has been and continues to be meaningful. I will ‘see you at the cross’ tomorrow.

Friday Nudge: Notice Where the Earth is Being Crucified

I have been reflecting on Good Friday, and the saying by Stephen Blackmer that I used in a previous essay keeps echoing in my head:

How can we sing about the resurrection when the Earth is being crucified?

Everywhere we turn, we see increasing consequences of the climate emergency. Wildfires and flooding, droughts and once-in-a-century storms every few years, widescale poverty and the increase in climate-fuelled violence. Wherever you turn, the evidence of the climate emergency is pushing up closer against the carefully erected shields we put up to protect ourselves. We have tried to keep the worst of it at bay, in our minds and, if we are privileged at all, in our personal circumstances.

Yet the accelerating reality of the climate emergency, the symptoms and signs of the growing instability of Earth’s climate system that are becoming too intense to ignore, is not unlike the coming of Good Friday. It’s not unlike this week. As much as we would prefer not to think about what happened to Jesus this fateful week so long ago, we would rather avoid the fear of the disciples at the Last Supper, Jesus’ pleading at Gethsemane, the betrayal of Judas, or the utter agony as Christ was crucified, we know that the only way to get to Easter is, indeed, by contending with and allowing the events of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the dark hours of Holy Saturday to penetrate our hardened shells and pierce our hearts. Only in the letting in and letting go of Holy Week can we get to Easter, to sing about the resurrection once again.

It is the same with the climate emergency, both locally and globally. Everywhere we turn, the Earth itself is being crucified. Through human action and inaction, the lifesystems of the planet are suffering, and are in agony. We humans, especially those of us who hold any privilege (middle- and upper-classes, I’m talking to us), are Judas. We humans have betrayed God, present in and beyond God’s creation.

We want to get to Easter, not just in our faith tradition but for the Earth, too. We want to see a resurrection in the Earth community, rising from the death we have caused through greenhouse gases and addiction to consumerism. Yet, we will not get there unless we face what has happened to the Earth and allow ourselves to lament. This is not to reap more guilt and shame onto us, thereby worsening our eco-anxiety. Instead, it is to say that unless we can fully face what is happening to the Earth and then lament it, allowing ourselves to wail and grieve before God, we will not be able to get to Easter for the Earth.

And so my friends, this is your Friday Nudge: tomorrow on Good Friday, I invite you to look around (or read in the paper) and notice one part of the Earth being crucified in the climate emergency right now. What is happening? What are the details? Choose to notice something that you haven’t paid attention to before. Let it in. Lament. Allow yourself to sit not only at the cross of Jesus, but at the cross that is that aspect of the climate emergency.

What do you notice? Where is the Earth being crucified?

And then, in addition to celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I invite you to also pay attention to where resurrection is happening in the Earth community with respect to the climate crisis. Where is climate action being taken? Where is there healing? Perhaps for the particular aspect you noticed on Good Friday, where do you see the hope of resurrection?

We cannot truly sing about the resurrection of Jesus Christ if we are not also paying attention to where other crucifixions and other resurrections are occurring. Pay attention, my friends. Easter is coming!

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Essay: Review of Emboldened by Christ, edited by April Bumgardner

As you faithfully prepare for the season of Easter, I want to introduce you to a book that I reviewed more than a year ago on my blog, published here for the first time.

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