Season of Creation - Partners with God

Isaiah 43:14–44:5 The situation in which the Hebrew people found themselves is a timeless one, most of us have no experience of exile—but we all have experienced times where our vision is clouded, preventing us from seeing anything but darkness and despair. 

Sometimes this is on a personal level where everything seems to be going wrong - tragedy, broken relationships, illness, bad news … sometimes on more of a community level, in the midst of disaster and sometimes these days on more of a global level when we see the effects of climate change, when we watch helplessly while politicians just seem not to care, when we see only war, war and more war. 

All these things linger about us and hinder our ability both to see the future and to move into it. They also raise for us the most serious of theological questions, as they cause us to doubt the promises we have received in Jesus Christ: divine forgiveness, new life, and the love of God. Jesus said the Kingdom of God was at hand - where is it now in our world? Where is God? Is there any hope? 

 Isaiah’s words are like a beam of light that scatters the darkness and drives away demons. The prophet reminds us who God is and how God acts. He uses the imagery of creation overlaid with Israel’s story of redemption. The image of making a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters immediately brings to mind the story of the Exodus, God’s great and mighty act which formed them as a nation - it was in the Exodus that God said “I hear you…” to a suffering people. 

The Exodus story, for the nation of Israel, became the life death and resurrection of Christ for us - When Christ went through his own Exodus, going through the waters of death and on into new life and new creation. Israel remembers their salvation story in those cosmic images of a path in the mighty waters. We remember our salvation story in the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist. God uses very tangible elements from his creation to speak to our hearts and remind us - God is present in the world - present to bring hope and healing; God is the Creator and understands and loves our world in ways beyond our understanding; God is a saving God, God’s business is salvation no matter how dire the circumstances. God’s intention is blessing. 

Today we began to celebrate the Season of Creation. It is a time when we celebrate the beauty of creation and the wonder of God our creator. It is also a time when we recommit ourselves to get involved in the care of creation. The prophet Isaiah invokes creation imagery and this takes us back to those stories of creation in Genesis. In Genesis 1 when God invited the human to have dominion over the earth - it was an invitation to partner with God in caring for creation. In Genesis 2, God planted a garden and put the human in the centre of it to be the gardener to tend and keep it. 

So when we look at the darkness in our world and wonder where God is - God is present in creation, God is present here with us. The prophet speaks of God doing a new thing in restoring the world, bringing blessing and growth. But God speaks to humans who have been invited to be partners. In the centre of the oracle God laments that God’s people have forgotten who they are, forgotten their covenant relationship with God. It is not enough for us to sit back and say sorry we mucked everything up God - fix it. Yes we are called on to repent because we have all contributed to the state this world is in - we have willingly participated in a consumerist culture, we have voted for politicians who do the most for our pocket and not for those who are concerned for justice, mercy and the care of our environment. We have benefitted from others’ exploitation as we buy cheap goods, made by slave labour and with no consideration for the impact on the environment. We have bought into the myth that military might and war are things we should invest in. So yes there is plenty for us to repent. 

But God invites us yet again to be partners with God in restoring our world. Identifying ourselves again as belonging to God. As the passage concluded This one will say, “I am the LORD’s”; another will be called by the name of Jacob; yet another will write on the hand, “The LORD’s,” and adopt the name of Israel. 

In our prayerbook in the service of Baptism we pray: 

We thank you that through the waters of baptism


you cleanse us,


renew us by your Spirit


and raise us to new life. 

In the new covenant


we are made members of your Church


and share in your eternal kingdom. 

As we enter the church we go past the font, a reminder every time that we are God’s, we were marked by the sign of the cross in our baptism; just as Isaiah spoke of one writing on their hand “the Lord’s”, when we sign ourselves with the sign of the cross we are identifying ourselves as those adopted by our Heavenly Father. As Paul wrote in the letter to the Ephesians “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,  just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.  He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved”. 

 Having been reminded that we are God’s, by the water God created, let us once again take on the vocation we were given at the beginning of time - let us partner with God in caring for the earth and all the creatures God created - human and non-human. 

Isaiah shows us that God is a God of the future—and not just any future, but a future full of hope and promise. God is the one who brings hope out of desperation, day out of night, and joy out of mourning. God makes a way where there is no way, and God leads us into a bright future that we are able neither to see nor to create for ourselves. Isaiah reminds us, speaking in God’s voice: 

 I am about to do a new thing; 

 now it springs forth; 

do you not perceive it? 

 I will make a way in the wilderness 

 and rivers in the desert. 

 Let us, together, be people of hope and action. Joining with God in the work of healing and sustaining God’s creation. Inviting others to join us. Let us, with God, bring blessing to this world, to the community, to Mount Maunganui, and to the world our children and grandchildren, those we love and their descendants, will inherit. 

 This poem of Malcolm Guite’s is a prayer The Fifth Day Creatures of the Sky and Sea

With open wings a seagull skims the spray, 

Sounding the depth below, a great whale sings, 

Your Spirit moves amongst them as they play 

With open wings.   

Now open me to all your Spirit brings, 

Move in me too as I begin to pray, 

That love may ripple out in shining rings.   

Speak to my soul through all you made this day, 

Through all that swims and flies and swoops and swings, 

And let your Spirit lift the words I say 

With open wings. 

Amen.