In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life,[a] and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.
John 1:1-5
My sermon from Creation in Christ Sunday (September 6, 2026).
In 1989, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople – the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Christians all around the world – invited the entire Christian community to pray for Creation. The Eastern Orthodox have, for centuries, set aside September 1st as a special day where they recognize Creation and Christ’s ministry within it. This “Feast of Indiction” was originally part of the civic calendar of ancient Rome, acknowledging the start of the harvest as well as the beginning of the imperial year. Like we have done with New Years Eve and New Years Day, Christians in the Greek speaking regions of the old Roman Empire integrated this civic celebration into their own calendar. They recognized how the harvest represents the kind of order God brings into the world. And while we often talk about creation in April around the celebration of Earth Day, our church calendar doesn’t intentionally point out how God’s work in creation is why we’re here in the first place. So in 2024, scholars and leaders from a variety of denominations and traditions began to explore what it might look like to add an Eastern Orthodox Feast day into the ways we tell time. These feast days are always more than pointing to something special or as a way to pray about a specific need in our world. A feast day – like Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and the Ascension – is always a recognition that God’s work of salvation is still going on. This work, though, doesn’t happen in a vacuum and it’s in the universe we actually live in where God’s love meets and claims us as God’s own.
Now the gospel reading assigned for this proposed feast Day includes the very first five verses from the gospel according to John. These verses are often described as the “The Prologue” since they’re about the beginning before the beginning actually began. Before there was Christmas and before the magi brought gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrrh to baby boy; before a twelve year old Jesus ran away from his parents to hang out in the Holy Temple during the celebration of Passover; before Jesus began his public ministry after hearing how his friend John the Baptist – not gospel writer – had been arrested; and before the women discovered an empty tomb – this Prologue invites us back to the foundation of it all. Its opening words are the same words that began the Greek translation of the book of Genesis that early Christians used within their own worshipping communities. These words were not meant to simply be a generic intro for Jesus’ story. John wanted to proclaim how even before the universe took shape, Jesus was part of it all. And while the book of Genesis imagines this time as a kind of cosmic soup full of chaos, disorder, a void, and some kind of water before rivers, oceans, and the sky exist – John introduces us to “the Word.” There are quite a few different theories about what exactly this Word might be since it first appeared as a philosophical concept in Greece around the year 500 BCE. John, though, provides his own definition since he identified Jesus as it during the act of creation itself. Dr. Karoline Lewis, in her commentary about this gospel, wrote “God is about creating, about life, about abundant-life. God is a life-giver at every turn in this story. And, as it turns out, so is Jesus.” And this life giving – this Word – is, itself, a creating act itself. For John, Jesus’ ministry wasn’t a bunch of words telling us what life might be like if our love matched the love God always offers us. Rather, what Jesus does is creation itself. New life, new birth, and new ways of being in the world represents the heart of Jesus’ work. And this work is intimately tied to who God chooses to be. The threefold claim within the very first verses of John reveal not only where Jesus is from and how he is God in the world – but also how Jesus’ relationship with the divine and with all creation is the same kind of relationship he has with us. To be with Jesus is to be wrapped up in the ongoing work of creation itself. And while the universe did eventually grow to be filled with all kinds of stars and planets, insects and animals, as well as way too many to do lists, heartbreaks, griefs, and joys – God’s light still shines and Jesus is at the heart of it all.
The Feast of Creation in Christ, however, is about more than just us. We, after all, have plenty of feast days – Pentecost, Christmas, Reformation, All Saints – that remind us of who Jesus chooses to be. A Jesus who was born; a Jesus who was taken care of; a Jesus whose feet were covered in dust while walking from place to place and who knows what it’s like to laugh and shed tears knows how full life can be. If we could, through our own intelligence, will, strength of character, and ability align our lives with the divine, then all we’d need from God are a few words to light our way. Yet even our best and most faithful choices can fail to embrace the love God grants us every day. So God brought new life into our lives by living life as we know it to be. But God’s involvement in creation isn’t only for those who can share way too many words on scrolls, in books, and through our phones. Jesus wasn’t only here for people; Jesus is also for everything that makes creation exactly what it is. And when John proclaimed all things came through Him, that included the trees, mountains, forests, and even weeds growing out of the cracks in the sidewalk. Jesus’ journey to the Cross wasn’t only for those who could articulate Jesus’ story. God’s commitment to creation also extends to those bits of the universe that don’t even know people exist.
It’s not always easy to recognize how Creation is always bigger than us. Even though we’re a part of it, we act as if we’re meant to be above or beyond it. However, every storm that comes our way, every natural disaster that devours our soul, and even those moments when we patiently wait for the tomatoes in our garden to finally turn red, we are suddenly reminded how small we actually are. A towering tree, a giant blue whale, a beetle rolling on the ground, and star light that is hundreds of thousands of years old before we even see it – all of this is a vivid reminder how we are created too. The God who made you in God’s own image also refused to give us our own private day of creation in the opening words of Genesis. We aren’t, I think, meant to assume we are the center of Creation’s story. Rather, since Jesus is already at the center of everything that has and will be made – every life can become more full and true. The fish in the Woodcliff Lake Reservoir; the leaf on the tree that has slowly begun to change color; the groundhog under our shed, and the geese taking way too long to wander through our parking lot are not something we are supposed to dominate or control. Instead, they are – like us – intimately connected to the divine and they also have a God who promises to never let us go.
Amen.