My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God, and Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.
The Almighty God is the Creator of All (Part II)
"The heavens declare the glory of God;
The firmament shows the creation of
His hands…" (Psalm 18 919).
The Incarnation As The Renewal Of The
Creation
God’s will, wisdom and love for the creation in general and for mankind in particular are revealed in the Incarnation in an inexpressible way. The Son of God, as the one through Whom the process of creation was fulfilled, came down from heaven into the world and became fully man, i.e., assumed human nature in its integrity and led it to the fulfillment of its God-given destiny, DEIFICATION (THEOSIS). The Orthodox Church teaches that the Virgin Mother of God, the Theotokos, IS THE MODEL OF THE RENEWAL OF MANKIND AND THE CREATION OF GOD, THE WHOLE MANKIND AND THE WHOLE OF THE CREATION PARTICIPATE IN THE INCARNATE GOD THE FATHER "MADE KNOWN, His will… as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him (Christ), things in heaven and things on earth" (Ephesians 1:10). In other words, Jesus Christ, the Son of God BECAME MAN, RESTORED AND RENEWED HUMANITY AND THE WHOLE OF THE CREATION, UNITING BOTH OF THEM WITH THE Creator in and through Himself. One of the Trinity, thus, became incarnate, became man, revealing His Lordship over the whole of the creation, and showing humanity a Lordship in stewardship and service.
Disintegrated Creation
The human Fall and the disintegration of creation
Before their Fall the first human beings experienced the creation AS ONE HARMONIOUS WHOLE. It was like a beautiful garden (paradeisos, Genesis 2:8) which THEY TENDED WITH CARE AND LOVE. The human Fall, however, which was essentially A SINFUL EXERCISING OF HUMAN FREEDOM, INTRODUCED FORCES OF DISINTEGRATION INTO THE BODY OF CREATION. Humanity experienced a two-fold alienation. On the one hand, it was estranged from the Creator, since Adam and Eve tended to hide themselves away from the sight of God (cf. Genesis 3:8) AS THEIR COMMUNION WITH THE SOURCE OF LIFE AND LIGHT WAS BROKEN. On the other hand HUMANITY LOST ITS CAPACITY TO ENTER INTO A PROPER RELATION WITH NATURE AND WITH THE BODY OF THE CREATION. ENMITY between the natural world and human beings replaced the relationship of harmony and care. Domination and exploitation of the creation for selfish ends by greedy human beings became the order of history. Thus, manifold forms of disintegration set in which converged in the fact of death and corruption. FEAR OF DEATH INSTILLED ANXIETY, ACQUISITIVENESS, GREED, HATRED, AND DESPAIR IN HUMAN BEINGS. Modern forms of economic exploitation, racial oppression, social inequalities, war, genocide, etc. are all consequences of the fear of death and collective signs of death.
Conclusions
We confess that God is the CREATOR OF ALLS THAT EXISTS, BEAUTIFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE, A FITTING MANIFESTATION OF HIS GLORY (cf. Psalm 103). But we stand today before a wounded creation which suffers under distorted conditions which are the result of the sin of humanity. In our selfishness and greed we have used our otherwise good technological abilities to exploit God’s creation, to destroy the balance of nature and to deform what God originally made to be in wholesome communion with us and with Him. Creation is no longer integrated with humanity nor is it in harmony with God. In fact, it stands in danger of conflagration, in the face of nuclear war.
The creation needs to be reintegrated, but this can happen only as it is brought once again into communion with the Lord, so that it may find its fullness of purpose and its transfiguration. Humanity can no longer ignore its responsibility to protect it and preserve it. In order to do this, however, humanity must learn to treat the creation as a sacred offering to God, an oblation, a vehicle of grace, an incarnation of our most noble aspiration and prayers.
Just as bread and wine are liked up as an offering for the sanctification of the world and all people in the Eucharist, a sacramental approach to the creation is needed for its reintegration.
The Lord God created His universe and all that is in it as an integrated whole. Today, we have brought about disintegration and the mineral, plant and animal dimensions of the creation, in spirit and in body, we are called to offer the whole of God’s creation back to Him as a sacrament and as an offering cleansed, purified, restored for His sanctification of it.
O God, "the things that are Yours, we offer them to You according to all things and for all things. Amen. May this be our prayer for the "integrity of God’s creation."
Saint Gregory the Theologian says:
"There is a certain firstness,
secondness, thirdness, and so on to the seventh day of
rest from works, and by these days is divided all that is
created, being brought into order by unalterable laws,
but not produced in an instant, by the Almighty Logos/Word,
for Whom to think or to speak means already to perform the
deed. If man appeared in the world last, honored by the
handiwork and image of God, this is not in the least surprising;
since for him, as for a king, the royal dwelling had to be
prepared and only then was the king to be led in, accompanied
by all creatures."
"The world was not conceived by chance and without reason,
but for an useful end and for the great advantage of all beings, it
sis really the school where reasonable souls exercise themselves,
the training ground where hey learn to know God; by sight of
visible and sensible things the mind is led, as by a hand, to the
contemplation of invisible things."
Saint Gregory of Nyssa writes:
"Scripture shows the vital forces blended with the world of
matter according to a gradation: first, it infused itself into
insensate nature; then advanced into the sentient world; then
ascended to intelligent and rational beings… The creation of
man is related to coming last, who took up into himself every
single form of life, both that of plants and that which is seen
in animals. … what is perfect comes last, according to a certain
necessary sequence in the order of things…
Thus we may suppose that nature makes an ascent as it were
by steps–I mean the various properties of life–from the lower
to the perfect form."
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"Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!"
– Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
The Eastern Orthodox Christian Ethos 