War, wildfires, violence, famine, people fleeing danger forced to be refugees, people fleeing death and violence forced to be asylum seekers. Oil spills and poisoned water and seas choked by plastics. It’s no wonder the whole of creation groans for freedom from bondage, hopes for glory and restoration. It’s no wonder that we Christians too, filled with the Holy Spirit, long for full adoption into the family of God as we colabor in the redemption of all creation.
Romans 8:18-25 captures perfectly the sense of these times. As the earth literally burns around us, as people flee their homes around the world before the sometimes figurative, sometimes literal scorched earth of violence and abuse, we cannot help crying out.
And yet, we find that we must wait.
But waiting patiently is different from waiting quietly. Creation groans, and we groan. We cry out in our suffering, just as the creation in California cries out to God, dressed in ashes like Jerusalem in mourning. Refugees lament, and rightly so. Asylum seekers lament, as they should.
In our crying out, we are in the same boat as God. Jesus, “God with us,” arrived in a time of turmoil to an occupied and oppressed people, not a time of peace.
Waiting patiently is also different from waiting passively. Through the act of crying out, we learn the urgency felt by the people who are suffering. From lament we are called to action.
We are supposed to work diligently and urgently toward the peace, reconciliation, and restoration we hope for. We are to work to help all of God’s creation, and this is a means of displaying our love for God as well.
Throughout this Advent season, let cry out with the suffering creation and all who are living through hardship. Let us keep hoping for the coming peace, restoration, and reconciliation that will finally end all suffering and injustice. And let us work faithfully, diligently, patiently, for all of God’s creation to bring about as much of that hopeful vision as we can, as soon as we can.
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