Reading: Colossians 1:15-23
Sermon for St Edward’s, creation season, 21/9/25
Last weekend many people went to a city to protest for something they believed in and felt they needed to speak up about. A cause they feel not enough is being done about. They carried flags and banners, in some cases taking criminal action to highlight their cause. There were arrests. There were even clergy present, and prayers were said.
I’m not, as you might think, talking about the rally organised by Stephen Yaxley Lennon, but the actions of a group known as Christian Climate Action, who last weekend quietly unfurled banners in many CofE cathedrals across the country, calling for humanity to stop crucifying creation. They said it was a ‘a call to the Church to exemplify radical and transformative Christian living in the face of climate collapse’ and they have released a manifesto of sorts, asking for the church to do better. Now I’m not here to give an advert for this organisation although I do give them my support, but I was struck by such a contrast in these protests and actions happening at the same time. In one, public speakers called for violence, and foreigners to ‘go home’, seeking division, but they also did so in the name of what they label as Christianity. The Lord’s Prayer was prayed from the stage, a pseudo bishop spoke and the event has been roundly criticised by many in the CofE, MPs and others.
In the other protest, faithful Christians peacefully unfurled banners and prayed for the entire world God created. In some cases they were welcomed by cathedral staff, in others they were arrested or forcibly removed. But they did so in the name of Christ. I know which protest I think is more needed and vital for this world.
In fact I believe the call to stop crucifying creation is prophetic, as some of you know I have written on this very theme myself as part of my master’s research and I want to share some of that this morning, obviously won’t be able to share all of it but I’ve picked out some key points.
We talk a lot about climate change, creation and sustainability here. We talk about the need to change our ways so that the planet has a chance to recover. We talk about the biblical mandate to care for creation. We talk about justice for those who are most affected by climate change, our brothers and sisters in some of the poorest nations of the world. We talk about what we can do as individuals, and as a church.
But today I want to focus on the why. What is our motivation to want to nurture and safeguard creation? We often talk about God as creator, or the Spirit as the power behind creation, but what about Jesus? Where is Christ in creation?
Well, I believe the Bible says something about Jesus’ role in creation that is often overlooked, it was not just God the Father, or God the creator, but every part of the Trinity involved in creation, and Jesus’ part is often forgotten. Often creation or worship in nature can be thought of as a distraction to gospel teaching, that it takes our focus away from salvation, but I believe Christ is at the heart of creation and the entire created order is part of God’s plan for redemption.
There are several passages we could look at but we’re going to focus on Colossians 1 this morning. It’s important to remember that Paul’s main focus overall in his writing was to convince people of the divinity of Christ, that Jesus was indeed the Son of God, for Jews and gentiles. He’s all about Jesus. In fact, in just the first chapter of Colossians, Paul refers both to Christ Jesus twice; Christ 4 times and also Lord Jesus Christ. So, here in Col 1 Paul lays out in no uncertain terms who Jesus is, his Lordship, his superiority, and that no other spiritual power is required for salvation apart from Christ. Paul is possibly doing this in response to some false teaching in the area, but also he was writing into a context where there were a range of spiritual, philosophical and religious influences, and he wants to ensure there can be no doubt about who Jesus is.
Paul says here Jesus is the image of God, the one through whom all creation was made, including rulers and authorities. He is the head of the church, in him all the fullness of God dwells, and through him God is reconciled to humanity and creation. It is as if Paul is covering all bases, going way over the top, “you think you got something special in your beliefs? you think your beliefs are giving you what you need? try this on for size… “
So Jesus is all important, there’s nothing new there for us really, but how does that link to creation?
Paul says: Jesus is, the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation (v.15).
The use of image here links the reader back to the very beginning of the Hebrew scriptures, to Genesis, to the Jewish God who created all, there at the beginning of creation; and where Adam and Eve are made in the image of God. And Jesus is often thought of as a new Adam, so in the same way he is the firstborn of creation just as Adam was. But Jesus is the true first born, the heir, not just of God, but of all of creation.
Paul then goes on “that all things in heaven and on earth, all rulers and spiritual powers were created in him and through him” the him being Jesus (v.16). So everything is created through Jesus, whether rulers, powers or anything else in creation, he is therefore supreme over all things; there is no other spiritual or cosmological power needed. It is as if Paul is covering all bases, there is no come back to this verse, he simply silences any arguments against the power of Christ.
But also we see Jesus at the very heart of creation, it was ‘through him’ that all these things were created. We could speculate as to what ‘through him’ and ‘in him’ means but at the very least it means he had a role in creating the world.
To reiterate that even further, Paul says it wasn’t just about the creation of the world but the sustaining of it, v17:
He [Jesus] himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together…
Christ was not only there before all things, before creation, but he is the force that continues to hold it together, and will do into the future and the age to come.
There are parallels here with the Jewish idea of wisdom. For example, in Proverbs 8:22-31 we read of wisdom: The Lord created me at the beginning of his work… At the first before the beginning of the earth… and in Sirach (in the Apocrypha) Sirach 1:14 Wisdom was created before all things. Can you see the similarities between these and Colossians 1 where Jesus is the image of God, the firstborn of creation, and all things were created through him and for him.
These are writings that would have been known to Jews, so again. Paul is using all the tools in his kit to point people to Jesus as the Son of God, relating to Jewish teaching.
So for Paul, Jesus existed at the very beginning, everything was created in him and through him, and he is divine.
Just to add to this, in this passage there are 2 Greek words for creation. Kosmos and Ktisis. Both refer to the world, and often this has been taken to mean the people rather than creation itself. There’s a focus on humanity. But there is now a widely agreed sense that one of those words, ktisis, specifically relates to all the created order, not just humanity, ktisis is all of creation, everything, world, animals, plants, people.
As an example, earlier in v 6 Paul says of the gospel:
Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it…
The ‘world’ here is kosmos and this does indeed refer to the fruit of the gospel in people hearing it. Kosmos means the people of the world. But later in verse 15 where we read Jesus is the firstborn over all creation, the word for creation is ktisis and again in v.23 the gospel is proclaimed to all creation under heaven, the creation here is ktisis. The NRSV actually better notes the ktisis translation as: which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, which makes it clearer.
So for Paul, Jesus existed at the very beginning, everything was created in him and through him, and all that was created means everything, the earth, people, animals, all we see in the Genesis narrative in fact. And that the gospel is proclaimed to all of this, not just people. As one writer notes this “is emphatically not the story of the salvation of a few elect human beings…”
Which in turn implies that redemption and salvation is for all creation, but perhaps that is for another day.
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So how does this link us to climate change?
One of the things I explored in my research is that we can view climate change as the wounds of Christ. Some of you came to my zoom presentation on this as I was preparing to give a paper at a conference earlier this year, but let me try and explain it simply…
I attempted to explore the idea of seeing the planet in a place of ongoing trauma, directly as a result of the sin of human-caused damage to the planet, and as our sin, it can be seen as the wounds of the Christ. So just to clarify, I want to argue that human damage to the planet is a sin, and that sin (along with all others) in part caused/ causes Jesus’ wounds at the crucifixion. And that the earth is in a place of trauma as a result.
Trauma can be described in many ways but in short, is a wound from a past event that is lived out on a daily basis (Bessel van der Kolk, so called father of trauma research).
Shelly Rambo, theologian, has explored trauma from a Christological perspective. She challenges that a more modern interpretation of trauma must reflect critically on the traumatic afterlife of the cross, by not jumping ahead to the resurrection and what lies beyond that. The return of Jesus reveals something about life in the midst of death… and marks a distinct territory for thinking about life as marked by wounds, and yet recreated through them”. So what she’s saying is the place in between Jesus’ death and resurrection – Holy Saturday – has much to teach us but we often skip past it to get to the good bit! She’s asking what might we learn in the in between place, a place of trauma.
To explain my thinking a bit more… Christian doctrine says that humanity is sinful, and that our sin (past, present, and future) was and is dealt with through the atonement, with the death of Christ on the cross (noting there are arguments around the nature of atonement theory in its various guises as problematic, but nevertheless it remains a core doctrine for Christianity). So we believe that whilst our sin is directly responsible for Christ’s crucifixion, and we sometimes talk about our sin nailing him to the cross for example, we also believe that our sin is taken away, washed clean at the cross, as Jesus takes our punishment.
So I wonder if we can see climate change as part of that process? I want to ask you, is it sinful to harm the planet in the way we are doing? are we selfish in how we treat the earth, use her resources?
I believe yes it is and yes we are.
Another theologian Mark Wallace writes, The lash marks of human sin cut into the body of the crucified Christ are now even more graphically displayed across the expanse of the whole planet… God continually suffers the agony of death and loss in the “environmental squalor that humankind has wrought and using the words of poet WS Merwin he notes: the scars of Golgotha marked the whole earth, the wounds of crucifixion extend on all creation.
So he’s describing the effects of human sin to the planet, as inflicted on Christ.
Is this making sense? In a way it is deeply complicated but I’ve left out a lot of the really complicated stuff! but in another way it is actually very simple. If we believe our sin, all sin is what took Jesus to the cross and if we believe that human caused damage to the planet is a sin then it makes sense that we can see the effects of that in the wounds of Christ. For some if might be in a metaphorical sense, an image that helps us to imagine the effects of sin, or actually. As we consume fossils fuels, pour sewage into rivers, cut down rain forests, we are literally adding a nail into Christ’s hands and feet. You can decide which of those might be helpful for you.
So when CCA are calling for us to stop crucifying creation, they have a point.
And they are calling the church, us, to stand up and voice this. To call out damage to the earth for what it is. Sin. A weapon against Christ. A hammer and nails.
They are calling the church to do 3 things:
1. Find its Courage – our Church must follow the example of Jesus by taking radical
nonviolent action in this existential emergency.
2. Cease Doing Harm – stop directly contributing to the crucifixion of Creation.
3. Return to its Roots – respond to the planetary crisis with prayer and confession and by
building loving community.
I think we’re already pretty good as a church on these, but there is always more we can do. and what about us as individuals?
1. Radical action might be protesting, but it might be sharing with people you know, asking them if they aware of what is happening, how urgent this is. Having the courage to share with those around us.
2. Cease doing harm – for example do you get your electricity from an eco provider like Octopus or Ecotricity? If you wan to swap I can send you details and we can earn a bit for the church too in recommending people. How often do you fly? is it really necessary to fly abroad for a holiday? This country has some many wonderful destinations. And if you really have to, well are you offsetting your carbon? planting trees in response for example. If I said to you every mile you travel in a plane is like a hammer blow on a nail in Christ’s hands, how would that feel? If I said every hour of heating your house through non renewable sources, like gas, was as if you were holding the nails in place, how would that feel? if every item of clothing you buy that is made of new plastic – polyester, nylon for example, leaching microplastics into our water systems whenever they are washed, every item is like a lash mark against Jesus’ body.
Is that shocking? unfair? make you feel guilty or defensive?
Did you a moment ago when I explained the idea of our sin causing Christ’s wounds accept that? how do you feel now I’m challenging some of your behaviours?
As a church these are some of the things we are wrestling with. For example As a church we are in the process of switching to eco friendly fuel providers and have begun to look at changing our heating system to one that is sustainable in order to reduce our impact on God’s creation.
A few weeks ago the PCC of this church wrote to this diocese to ask them to stop investing in fossil fuels. We were the only diocese in the entire country still investing in them. Now we weren’t the only voice but I am pleased to say that the assets team have agreed to divest from fossil fuels recognising the harm these companies are doing to our planet. That came from voices speaking up asking for change.
3. Prayer and confession, we have to recognise the harm we are doing and say sorry for it. We need to pray for the earth, for those working to defend and nurture it.
Do you know where clergy have protested in this area they are often sanctioned by their dioceses. One woman I know who was arrested in her 80s for peacefully protesting, had her PTO removed so she can no longer minister having served faithfully for so many years an continuing to do so by using her voice for God’s creation.
I encourage you to take a look at the full document it has a lot of calls in it for the church, but we are the church, and we can all do some of them for ourselves.
Now I am challenging you this morning but I hope I have also given you the theological grounding for why this is important. I’m happy to chat more about it with anyone who would like.
What I want us all to take away from today is that Jesus is central to creation, in the process of creating it and in sustaining it. Not just a nebulous creator God, but Christ himself.
And if Christ is at the heart of our faith and at the heart of creation, we must take the care of creation seriously. We must take the challenge to stop harming it seriously, we must stop crucifying creation.
Amen
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