A few days ago, researchers studying the effect of climate science reported that the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is slowing down and will be 20% slower in about 20 years. It sent shivers throughout the scientific community, from those observing global weather trends to those concerned about sustainability (that is, agriculture, livable land, population growth, and such). To be clear, the ACC is not a newly discovered phenomenon. We’ve known about it for the last 300 years. It is the largest and most important oceanic current in the world, and despite being called “Antarctic”, it moves large bodies of water across both hemispheres, circling around Antarctica like blood to a beating heart. In fact, the ACC has been described as the “heartbeat” of the earth. Now, you get a glimpse of the concern over that report. The heartrate of the earth is slowing down by 20% within most of our lifetimes, and since it is a dramatic decrease, numerous unpredictable problems such as intense weather systems, deadly storm upon deadly storm, the imbalance of drought and flooding, or the dramatic rise of sea levels may actually slow the ACC down even further and faster. In fact, the impact of these problems is already being felt today. Winds that blew rain clouds across a city the size of Toronto may have taken a few hours just a few years ago. Now it simply rapidly churn around so that it floods in Scarborough but it’s dry in Mississauga. And major cities like Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, are rapidly being overwhelmed and will be underwater in a matter of 20 years.
As I think about these seemingly large problems, it occurred to me that humanity’s failure to fulfil the first of the commands of God in Genesis 1:28 may have led to our present existential dilemmas. Why didn’t we take care of the earth like we were commanded to do? Why do we conflate “subdue” with “abuse”, and “dominion” with “destroy”? The answer to that occurs two chapters later in the Book of Genesis. Sin entered the world. Sin abuses and destroys so that those who sin abuse and destroy the earth. Hebrews 2:5 tells us that God didn’t give the earth to angels but to us, but sin ripped us from our relationship with God and subsequently started the gradual deterioration of the earth like a garden without a gardener. No wonder Paul says, “Creation was unwillingly subjected to the futility of our sin, and groans to be released from its bondage, waiting eagerly for the coming of Christ” (Romans 8:19-22). Perhaps what we’re seeing today is the groaning of all creation. Unfortunately, humanity’s answer is the demand for more “earth-care”. It’s like asking humanity to be better gardeners when the gardeners are poisoned by sin. The answer is not better care of the earth but the repentance of the human soul. Next time we read about “crazy weather systems” or the drowning of coastal cities, think about our corporate need for repentance. The only answer to the garden’s demise is the salvation of the gardener through Jesus Christ. And we will hear the garden groan until the Day of Jesus’ return. We can count on it.
Just Church
At Just Church, our focus is not just on the care of the earth but the salvation of every person through Jesus Christ. “The vision of Just Church is to establish a church in just the way Christ called the church to be – true to His Word, loving Him, loving one another, and loving the lost.”
