Did Zaccheus really climb a sycamore tree?

You can find the answer on Dean’s new Ambling post:

“The Sycamore That’s Not a Sycamore”

With all wisdom and understanding [God] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. (Eph. 1:8-10, 18-23)

Alister McGrath is former professor of theology at Oxford and principal of Oxford’s  Wycliffe Hall [pictured] as well as a contributing editor at Christianity Today. In his book The Reenchantment of Nature, McGrath has written one of the most comprehensive reviews of the historic Christian understanding of the meaning of nature as the general revelation of God. Hardly anything that Alister writes is less than comprehensive! Among the important points he makes about the significance of the material world is that God took on himself the form of material man in the person of Christ: the Incarnation

Here are some of his thoughts on the implication of God becoming incarnate within his creation:

The Trinitarian conception of God affirms that God is to be thought of as both creator of the world and creative presence within it. And if God inhabits the natural order, the place of divine habitation must be treated with respect. In the Christian tradition nature is not divine, nor is it possessed of any divine quality [contrary to pantheistic thought]. Nevertheless, it is and remains both God’s possession and the place of the indwelling of the one “who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23)

The Christian idea of the natural order as God’s place of action and dwelling is intensified by the doctrine of the incarnation, perhaps one of the most remarkable Christian ideas. In essence, the doctrine holds that God did not choose to remain in heaven, but entered into human history in the form of a human being. Rather than demanding that we ascend to God in order to be saved, God chose to enter into our world, to meet us there and bring us home. In insisting that Jesus Christ is both divine and human, Christian theologians affirm that God entered into the natural world and redeemed it from within. If God valued this world enough to enter it, and dignify it with the divine presence, then Christians ought to hold that place of habitation with appropriate respect. . . .

The Christian vision of the future takes the form of the renewal and transformation of creation. The day will come when “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay” (Rom. 8:19-23) and achieve the glorious freedom for which it was created. This theme is reiterated throughout the Old Testament, which frequently looks forward to the final restoration and reintegration of nature. What has been distorted and ruined will finally be restored to its original integrity—including the animal kingdom: “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox: but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord” (Isa. 65:25

Perhaps Christians have been slow to realize the full ecological implications of their rich theological heritage. Yet there can be no doubt that Christianity possesses and is distinguished by a set of beliefs that affirm the importance of respecting, tending, and preserving the natural order.

Edward Hicks, "The Peaceable Kingdom"

There are doubtless many “bad” Christians who fail to appreciate what their tradition demands of them, or prefer to overlook the implicit ecological dimensions of their faith. That is, however, a criticism of individual Christians, not of the fundamental vision of Christianity itself. I have no doubt that Christians need to be more attentive and sensitive to this issue, and to welcome criticism of individuals and churches when they fail to live up to their ideals in these matters. This is a vitally important role that environmentalists from outside the Christian faith can play in keeping the churches faithful to their calling. But it is quite untrue to suggest that Christianity itself, by definition and account of its fundamental ideas and values, is antienvironmental. . . .

The critical role of Christianity in emphasizing human accountability for the environment, and placing limits on human exploitation of nature, is only now being recognized—at a time when it is needed more than ever.

[See the stewardship work being done by the A Rocha Christian creation care agency here]

The LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:23-24).

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse (Revelation 22:1-3).

If there was anything missing in my fundamentalist upbringing, for sure it was the understanding of the concept of the “cosmic Christ” and the understanding that the earth—the entire cosmos—was heading for new birth, not eternal consumption. Jesus’ death on the cross provided more—way more—than the redemption of disembodied souls: it promised redemption for all nature along with the eventual reclamation of our material bodies. We’re destined for life never-ending and material—bodies that will once again partake of the tree of life from which the bodies of Adam and Eve were banished (Genesis 3 and Revelation 22). The tree of life forms the bookends of the Bible—a wonderful truth.

The Bible scholar who made this most clear to me was Jürgen Moltmann, the German theologian who came to Christ in a prisoner-of-war camp: Norton Camp in the UK—a wonderful story told in his book The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life.

[Cosmic Christ photo source]

Here are some of Moltmann’s thoughts from that book:

The final new creation of all things goes far beyond the daily preservation of creation. The new creation will overcome not only the destruction but also the destructibility; not just death through human violence, but the mortality of the created being itself. The fundamental conditions of present creation will be transformed. Creation will be freed from the power of time for the presence of eternity, and from the power of death for eternal life. The creation which is everywhere threatened by chaos and annihilation will be kept wholly safe and secure in God’s eternal love.

Christ proclaimed this new creation of all things when he brought God’s kingdom to the poor, and God’s salvation to the sick, and God’s justice to sinners. For the Christian hope this new creation of all things begins with the raising of Christ from the dead, and with the overcoming of death’s power through his resurrection.

As Christians see it, the day of Christ’s resurrection is the first day of the new creation. That is why it begins with the new creation of light: “The God who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor. 4:6). According to what the witnesses tell us, the “Easter appearances” took place in the cosmic light of the first day of the new creation. That is why, early on, Christians called the day of resurrection “the eighth day”—that is to say the first day of the new creation. They understood Christ’s resurrection in cosmic dimensions—not merely in historical ones—as the beginning of the new world in which all tears will be wiped away and death will be no more.

It is in this sense that the Orthodox Easter liturgy proclaims:

Now all is filled with light
heaven and earth and the realm of the dead.
The whole creation rejoices in Christ’s resurrection, which is its true foundation.

The hymn writers of the Western church speak the same language, for example Venantius Fortunatus.

Earth with joy confesses, clothing her for spring,
All good gifts restored with her returning King.
Bloom in every meadow, leaves on every bough,
Speak his sorrows ended, hail his triumph now.

It is not by chance that with us the Christian festival of Easter coincides with the festival of spring. The springtime of nature was interpreted as the symbol of the eternal springtime of the new creation of all things. Nor is it by chance that the Christian feast of Pentecost coincides with the beginning of summer. The greening and flowering of nature was seen as a symbol of the eternal quickening of the whole creation in the breath of the divine Spirit. With the raising of Christ from the dead and the annihilation of death which took place in him, the eschatological process of the new creation of all transient and mortal beings begins. Whoever out of the deadly perils of earthly creation cries out for the Creator Spirit expects with the resurrection of Christ the resurrection of the body and the resurrection of nature also.

With the rebirth of Christ from death to eternal life we also expect the rebirth of the whole cosmos. Nothing that God has created is lost. Everything returns in transfigured form. So we expect that the Spirit of the new creation of all things will vanquish human violence and cosmic chaos. More than that: we expect that the power of time and the power of death will be vanquished, too. Finally, we expect eternal consolation when “the tears are wiped away” from our eyes. We expect eternal joy in the dance of fellowship with all created being and with the triune God. . . .

We suffer because we love; we are afraid of dying because we want to live; we want to remain and not to pass away. Out of the positive experiences of love, of life, of permanence, we put together the picture of hope for the new creation of all things. That is why we talk about “the kingdom of God” which is going to drive out the forces of chaos. That is why we talk about the “eternal life” which is going to overcome death. That is why we hope for “the divine righteousness and justice” which is going to drive injustice and violence from the face of the earth. That is why we try to hope for the resurrection of created beings that have died, and for their rebirth to eternal life. Otherwise we should despair over the mass death that is round about us every day.

Out of hope for eternal life, love for this vulnerable and mortal life is born afresh. This love does not give anything up. If we had to surrender hope for as much as one single creature, for us Christ would not have risen. The love founded on hope is the strongest medicine against the spreading sickness of resignation. The modern cynicism which is prepared to accept the death of so many created things is an ally of death. But we Christians are what Christoph Blumhardt called “protest people against death.” That is why out of the deadly depths we cry out for God’s Spirit. That is why we cry out for the Spirit who sustains the whole creation, and wait for the Spirit of the new creation of all things. Our cry from the depths is a sign of life—a sign of divine life.

[Portion of Chapter 10 from The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life, Fortress Press, 1997.]

About Joseph [Moses] said: “May the LORD bless his land with the precious dew from heaven above and with the deep waters that lie below; with the best the sun brings forth and the finest the moon can yield; with the choicest gifts of the ancient mountains and the fruitfulness of the everlasting hills; with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness and the favor of him who dwelt in the burning bush (Deut. 33:13-16).

It is true that, as Wendell Berry confesses, he is not a Bible scholar.  And one would not label him as a conservative evangelical.  Nonetheless, he is an astute reader and interpreter of what the Scriptures say and imply about nature.  Here is how J. Matthew Bonzo and Michael R. Stevens, professors at conservative, evangelical Cornerstone University position Berry:

“If we were asked to name one person to whom contemporary Christians need to listen to, it would be this unlikely source, a man with no important connections to ecclesial or political or corporate power.  In fact, it is Berry’s abdication of power, his suspicion of all power that does not submit to limits of nature and personhood, that makes him so compelling.  He declares no new good but reiterates the old, enduring good—he tells again and again the story of the way things should be, from the instructive past to a meaningful possible future in the midst of a forlorn present. . . .  The content of our life has become strangely defined by what we lack, by what is broken.” [From Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life, Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan]

Here are some of Wendell Berry’s thoughts from an essay titled “Christianity and the Survival of Creation” [from Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community, Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc.  Copyright 1993 by Wendell Berry]:

It is clearly impossible to assign holiness exclusively to the built church without denying holiness to the rest of Creation, which is then said to be “secular.” The world, that God looked at and found entirely good, we find none too good to pollute entirely and destroy piecemeal. The church, then, becomes a kind of preserve of “holiness,” from which certified lovers of God dash out to assault and plunder the “secular” earth.

Not only does this repudiate God’s approval of his work; it refuses also to honor the Bible’s explicit instruction to regard the works of the Creation as God’s revelation of himself. The assignation of holiness exclusively to the built church is therefore logically accompanied by the assignation of revelation exclusively to the Bible. But Psalm 19 begins: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork.” The word of God has been revealed in fact from the moment of the third verse of the first chapter of Genesis: “Let there be light: and there was light.” and St. Paul states the rule: “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead. . . ” (Rom. 1:20). And from this free, generous, and sensible view of things, we come to the idolatry of the book: the idea that nothing is true that cannot be (and has not been already) written. The misuse of the Bible thus logically accompanies the abuse of Nature: if you are going to destroy creatures without respect, you will want to reduce them to “materiality”; you will want to deny that there is spirit or truth in them, just as you will want to believe that the only holy or ensouled creatures are humans, or only Christian humans.

By denying spirit and truth to the nonhuman Creation, latter-day proponents of religion have legitimized a form of blasphemy without which the nature—and culture—destroying machinery of the industrial economy could not have been built—that is, they have legitimized bad work. Good human work honors God’s work. Good work uses no thing without respect, both for what it is in itself and for its origin. It uses neither tool nor material that it does not respect and that it does not love. It honors Nature as a great mystery and power, as an indispensable teacher, and as the inescapable judge of all work of human hands. It does not dissociate life and work, or pleasure and work, or love and work, or usefulness and beauty. To work without pleasure or affection, to make a product that is not both useful and beautiful, is to dishonor God, nature, the thing that is made, and whomever it is made for. This is blasphemy: to make shoddy work of the work of God. And such blasphemy is not possible so long as the entire Creation is understood as holy, and so long as the works of God are understood as embodying and so revealing God’s spirit.

In the Bible we find none of the industrialist’s contempt or hatred for nature. We find, instead, a poetry of awe and reverence and profound cherishing, as in [the verses above] from Moses’ valedictory blessing of the twelve tribes. If we credit the Bible’s description of the relationship between Creator and Creation, then we cannot deny the spiritual importance of our economic life. Then we see how religious issues lead to issues of economy, and how issues of economy lead to issues of art, of how to make things. If we understand that no artist—no maker—can work except by reworking the works of Creation, then we see that by our work, by the way we practice our arts, we reveal what we think of the works of God. How we take our lives from this world, how we work, what work we do, how well we use the materials we use and what we do with them after we have used them—all these are questions of the highest and gravest religious significance. These questions cannot be answered by thinking, but only by doing. In answering them, we practice, or do not practice, our religion.

In my opinion whatever we may have to go through now is less than nothing compared with the magnificent future God has planned for us. The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own. The world of creation cannot as yet see reality, not because it chooses to be blind, but because in God’s purpose it has been so limited – yet it has been given hope. And the hope is that in the end the whole of created life will be rescued from the tyranny of change and decay, and have its share in that magnificent liberty which can only belong to the children of God! (Romans 8:18-21 J. B. Phillips paraphrase)

I remember keenly the era that gave birth to the modern environmental movement. Those memories are often poignant and painful—memories of protest songs and protest marches; of “liberation” from the establishment and its values; of a bloody, frustrating, no-win war; of naked Woodstock revelers; of unkempt, barefoot hippies storming the fences of nuclear power plants, and of radical college professors excoriating Christianity for bringing civilization to the eve of doomsday.

It was an agonizing time of soul-searching for the church, and one of the important commentators of the time was Francis Schaeffer. Thousands of Christians pored over his books to discover the reason for unreason and to understand why Western civilization had come to such a state. At the end of the process, we all asked with Schaeffer, “How should we then live?” Much of what this philosopher/theologian said about the demise of Christianity in the West was quickly understood and accepted as the basis upon which a revitalized Church could once again make its message heard in a “post-Christian” world.

Curiously, however, one of Schaeffer’s books was overlooked or, perhaps more correctly, ignored as an aberration of an otherwise astute thinker: it was titled Pollution and the Death of Man: A Christian View of Ecology. The book title and the cover itself—a photograph of a skull on a pile of dirt— likely added to its lack of popularity: Were not the rants of  “Hanoi” Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden enough? Did we really need another negative message to add to our burden of bad news? We had ministries to run and families to raise; how could we be expected to be enthusiastic about another message of impending disaster?

Those who took the time to read Pollution and the Death of Man (published in 1970) discovered, however, that its message was not just another commentary on the decline of Christianity, but it was a challenge to the church to apply biblical principles to the world’s environmental crises.

What follows is the core of Schaeffer’s theological argument:

What Paul says [in today's passage from Romans] is that when our bodies—bodies of men—are raised from the dead, at that time nature, too, will be redeemed. The blood of the Lamb will redeem man and nature together, as it did in Egypt at the time of the Passover, when the blood applied to the doorposts saved not only the sons of the Hebrews, but also their animals. . . . As Christ’s death redeems men, including their bodies, from the consequences of the Fall, so His death will redeem all nature from its evil consequences at the time when we are raised from the dead.

Now in Romans 6 Paul applies this future principle to our present situation. It is the great principle of Christian spirituality. Christ died, Christ is your Savior, Christ is coming back again to raise you from the dead. So by faith—because this is true to what has been in Christ’s death and to what will be when He comes again, by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit—you are to live this way substantially now. “Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him . . . . Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:9,11). So we look forward to this, and one day it will be perfect. But we should be looking now, on the basis of the work of Christ, for substantial healing in every place affected by the Fall.

Now we must understand that even in our relationship with God a distinction has to be made here. By justification our guilt was completely removed, in a forensic way, as God declared our guilt gone when we accepted Christ as our Savior. But in practice, in our lives between becoming a Christian and the Second Coming of Christ or our death, we are not in a perfect relationship to God. Therefore real spirituality lies in the . . . moment-by-moment looking to the blood of Christ, and upon the basis of the work of Christ seeking and asking God in faith for a substantial reality in our relationship with Him at the existential moment. I must be doing this so that substantially, in practice, at this moment, there will be a reality in my relationship with the personal God who is there. . . .

What we should have, individually and corporately, is a situation where, on the basis of the work of Christ, Christianity is seen to be not just “pie in the sky,” but something that has in it the possibility of substantial healing now in every area where there are divisions because of the Fall. First of all, my division from God is healed by justification, but then there must be the “existential reality” of this, moment by moment; second, there is the psychological division of man from himself; third, there are the sociological divisions of man from other men; and last, there is the division of man from nature, and nature from nature. In all of these areas we should expect to see substantial healing.

I took a long while to settle on that word “substantial,” but it is, I think, the right word. It conveys the idea of a healing that is not perfect, but that is real, evident, and substantial. Because of past history and future history, we are called upon to live this way now by faith.

When we carry these ideas over into the area of our relationship to nature, there is an exact parallel. On the basis of the fact that there is going to be total redemption in the future, not only of man but of all creation, the Christian who believes the Bible should be the man who—with God’s help and in the power of the Holy Spirit—is treating nature now in the direction of the way nature will be then. It will not now be perfect, but it must be substantial, or we have missed our calling. God’s calling to the Christian now, and to the Christian community, in the area of nature— just as it is in the area of personal Christian living in true spirituality—is that we should exhibit a substantial healing here and now, between man and nature and nature and itself, as far as Christians can bring it to pass.