Easter Perspective: Our Place in the World

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Our Place in the World

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars that you have established;

what are human beings that you are mindful of them,

mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God,

and crowned them with glory and honor.

You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under their feet...

Psalm 8:3-6 (NRSV)

This is the world we live in

And these are the hands we're given

Use them, and let's start trying

To make it a place worth living in

From "Land of Confusion" by Genesis

Many centuries ago, a certain poet looked up at the night sky and gazed at the moon and the stars, and he started to feel small and insignificant, like a tiny speck of dust.  He then remembered the stories he had heard about the origin of the universe, and he began to contemplate humanity's place in it all.  He remembered that God created humans just "a little lower" than the heavenly beings and graciously honored them by entrusting to them a great responsibility.  The ancient poet then took his pen and began writing.¹

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At the very beginning of the Bible, we read a poetic interpretation of the origin of the universe.²  We read that, day by day, as God is in the process of creating, God takes a look at the work in progress and sees that it is good.  Toward the end of this narrative, we learn that God creates one special kind of creature.  This creature is made in God's own image to be the caretakers of the Earth and of everything that dwells therein.  Humanity is God's magnum opus, for it is not until human beings are created that God looks at creation and sees that it is very good.

In a second account of the creation of the Earth, we learn more about humanity's place in it all.³  We read that when God created human beings, God made them the stewards of a garden.  Gardeners do not simply watch plants grow and pick vegetables: they use their ingenuity and creativity to care for their plants, to help them to produce more fruit, and to arrange them in aesthetically pleasing ways.  God also gave humans the task of naming the animals, a task that requires observation, thoughtfulness, and creativity.

One way in which human beings are created in the image of God is the fact that they are co-creators with God.  Human beings are creations of God who are themselves creative, and they are invited by God to contribute to the ongoing creation of the world.  Reflecting on the biblical creation stories, Rob Bell writes in his book How to Be Here about the creative task of the first humans:
They find themselves in the midst of this big, beautiful, exotic, heartbreaking, mysterious, endlessly becoming, unfinished world and they're essentially told, "Do something with it!  Make something!  Take it somewhere!  Enjoy it!"⁴

As we read a little further into the biblical narrative, we see that everything did not go according to plan.⁵  Through a strange story involving a talking snake and a forbidden piece of fruit that may or may not have been an apple, we learn that, even though God gave humanity a special place in a good world and provided for all of humanity's needs, we humans, in our infinite wisdom, thought that we could somehow do better.  As a result, sin entered the world, and God's good creation was broken.

With the emergence of sin came great consequences for humanity and for the Earth.  Humans were set at odds with the Earth.  We abuse the Earth and exploit its resources, and we cause sickness and suffering for many people as a result.  Men and women were set at odds with each other.  Women have been subjugated as a result of men's quest for dominance.  Human beings were set at odds with their work.  It is not hard work but toil that is the result of our sin.  Instead of doing the satisfying, creative work we were meant to do, so often we toil meaninglessly like cogs in a machine so that a select few can become wealthy while many remain in poverty.⁶

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Overwhelmed by creation, the ancient Hebrew poet reflected on the creation stories handed down by his people and wrote what is now known as the Eighth Psalm, a poem about the majesty of God, the vast universe God created, and the great honor and responsibility God graciously gave humanity.  He wrote that God essentially gave humanity control over the world God created.  Centuries later, an early Christian theologian quotes a few lines from this poem and remarks that it doesn't really seem that the world is actually under our control.⁷

The truth is that we have not been the divine-image-bearing stewards who cultivate the Earth and live harmoniously with it and with one another, as God intended us to be.  Instead, because of our sin, we have become plunderers who pillage and pollute, living at odds with the Earth and in conflict with each other.  One writer has gone so far to say that, though we so often want God to explain to us why there is so much suffering in the world, God really has more of a right to ask us why there is so much suffering in the world.⁸  God didn't fail to take care of the world: we failed to take care of the world God entrusted to us.

The early theologian goes on to say that Jesus Christ, the uniquely divine Son of God, became "a little lower" than the heavenly beings, like the human sons and daughters of God.  He took on human flesh and blood, so that he could become like His flesh-and-blood sisters and brothers.⁹  He who is fully divine became fully human - or, perhaps I should say, perfectly human.  By entering into human physicality, Christ also shared in the suffering caused by the sin of a fallen humanity, even suffering a wrongful death.  His story did not end with death, for God raised Him from the dead.

According to this theologian, Christ did all of these things to make us holy - in other words, to restore humanity to it's rightful place as the divine-image-bearing caretakers of the Earth.  By confronting death and rising from the grave, He effectively triumphed over the consequences of humanity's failures and banished all fear, so that we may fearlessly follow His example.  God redeems our suffering, as God redeemed Christ's suffering, using it to transform us more and more into what we were created to be.¹⁰

In the beginning, God created the Earth.  God created human beings to take care of the Earth and to participate in its ongoing creation.  Since the dawn of human existence, we have given God innumerable reasons to be disappointed in us, and we have given each other innumerable reasons to be cynical.  Despite everything, God has apparently not lost faith in us, for God has not given up on the original plan for us to be the caretakers of creation.  God sent Christ to the Earth to triumph over the consequences of our failures and to restore us to our rightful place in the world.  The restoration of humanity means restored relationships between humans and each other, between humans and the earth, and between humans and their work.


Notes:

1. This is how I imagine David was inspired to write the Eighth Psalm.
2. Genesis 1:1-2:4a
3. Genesis 2:4b-25
4. Rob Bell.  How to Be Here.  2016, Harper One.  pp. 8-9
5. Genesis 3
6. As you can probably see, I read the curse of Genesis 3:14-19 descriptively and not prescriptively.
7. Hebrews 2:5-8
8. Francis Chan and Denae Yankoski.  Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God.  2008, David C. Cook.  p. 33
9. Hebrews 2:9-11
10. Hebrews 2:10-15.  See also the notes for this passage in the Wesley Study Bible.  2009, Abingdon Press.

The photograph of the night sky over Arches National Park was taken by Neal Herbert of the National Park Service and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.