One of the highlights of my travels with RBC’s Day of Discovery team was the opportunity I had to visit one of the few groves of old cedars left in Lebanon: The Cedars of God.

'The Cedars of Lebanon' by Edward Lear, British. Oil, 1862.

As it is with valuable trees everywhere, our human stewardship of the biblically honored “cedars of Lebanon” has often been disgraceful. They were so valuable in ancient times that even by the time of Christ they were badly depleted. In the second century, the Roman emperor Hadrian placed a ban on cutting them—except, of course, for imperial Roman use! Reforestation has happened sporadically since that time. Modern industrial times took a great toll on them, and they were again badly depleted by the middle of the 20th century.

Lytton Musselman

Dr. Lytton Musselman, chair of the botany department of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, has assisted in some of the latest rounds of reforestation in Lebanon. As a visiting professor at American University in Beirut in 2001, Lytton was the host of our Day of Discovery crew as we did our filming of the “The Wonder of a Tree” series. He appears in the final episode. Lytton is also the host and content provider of the “Bible Plants” Website at ODU. You can find the “Bible Plants” link in the right sidebar. Four years ago—after years of research and photo collection—his book on the plants of the Bible and the Koran was published. Titled Figs, Dates, Laurel, and Myrrh: Plants of the Bible and the Quran, it is a great asset to me in grasping the outdoors setting of each biblical account.

Since the Bible begins with unfallen man living in a Garden and ends with the redeemed saints living in a Garden City, and since, in between, the natural world plays such an important role in the biblical narratives, I find it curious that Christians typically do not seem very interested in the natural history of the Bible lands. Because I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to visit Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan with Day of Discovery, I’m fascinated with the natural world of the Bible.

About a year ago I picked up in a used-book store a wonderful old tome by Henry Van Dyke, the author of The Other Wiseman and The First Christmas Tree. He’s also the writer of the lyrics we sing to the music of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore You.” This book is a chronicle of his own trip to Israel, Jordan, and Syria in 1907, and it is titled Out-Of-Doors In the Holy Land. In the preface he expresses what I have come to feel about the importance of the natural history of the lands of the Bible:

There are two things in the book which I would not have you miss: the first is the new conviction—new at least to me—that Christianity is an out-of-doors religion. From the birth in the grotto at Bethlehem (where Joseph and Mary took refuge because there was no room for them in the inn) to the crowning death on the hill of Calvary outside the city wall, all of its important events took place out-of-doors. Except the discourse in the upper chamber at Jerusalem, all of its great words, from the sermon on the mount to the last commission to the disciples, were spoken in the open air. How shall we understand it unless we carry it under the free sky and interpret it in the companionship with nature?

I’m sure, of course, that you and I have received most of our biblical instruction indoors—in our churches, and so forth—but because I have experienced the out-of-doors in the Holy Land and can still vividly recall its vistas, smell its odors, and even savor eating “St. Peter’s fish” on a table beside the Sea of Galilee, when I read the Bible today, it relates to me in a physical as well as a spiritual manner. One does not have to visit the lands of the Bible, however, to gain that perspective. Merely picturing Jesus as walking shoulder to shoulder with you through your favorite outdoor place will go a long way toward helping you grasp the reality that your Savior is also the Creator of much of what you love.

To me the capstone of honor given by a biblical author to the natural world is that great scene in Revelation 5 where the angels, the elders, and all the earth’s living creatures praise in unison the Lamb who was slain for our sin:

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders.In a loud voice they were saying: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise.” Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever! (Revelation 5:11-13).

According to biblical commentator, Matthew Henry, the literary quality of Psalm 104 is considered by many to exceed that of the Greek and Latin poets: “This noble poem is thought by very competent judges greatly to excel, not only for piety and devotion (that is past dispute), but for flight of fancy, brightness of ideas, surprising turns, and all the beauties and ornaments of expression, the Greek and Latin poets upon any subject of this nature.” It is commonly referred to as  the “creation psalm.”

As we continue in the theme of gratitude this Thanksgiving weekend, I thought it would be good for us, at least for a few moments, to take our minds off man-made things, sports, and entertainments to consider this awesome celebration of the creation, which gives us life and health—and give praise to the Creator of us all.  I think this is particularly fitting on this day when NASA is planning to launch its $2.5 billion, one-ton Mars Space Laboratory’s  rover “Curiosity” to see if perhaps there might be traces of water or life on our nearest fellow planet.  So far the contrast between lifeless Mars and our living planet is stark.

Psalm 104

(as paraphrased by Eugene Peterson in The Message)

O my soul, bless God! God, my God, how great you are! beautifully, gloriously robed, Dressed up in sunshine, and all heaven stretched out for your tent. You built your palace on the ocean deeps, made a chariot out of clouds and took off on wind-wings. You commandeered winds as messengers, appointed fire and flame as ambassadors. You set earth on a firm foundation so that nothing can shake it, ever.

You blanketed earth with ocean, covered the mountains with deep waters; Then you roared and the water ran away—your thunder crash put it to flight. Mountains pushed up, valleys spread out in the places you assigned them. You set boundaries between earth and sea; never again will earth be flooded.

You started the springs and rivers, sent them flowing among the hills. All the wild animals now drink their fill, wild donkeys quench their thirst. Along the riverbanks the birds build nests, ravens make their voices heard. You water the mountains from your heavenly cisterns; earth is supplied with plenty of water. You make grass grow for the livestock, hay for the animals that plow the ground.

Oh yes, God brings grain from the land, wine to make people happy, Their faces glowing with health, a people well-fed and hearty. God’s trees are well-watered—the Lebanon cedars he planted. Birds build their nests in those trees; look—the stork at home in the treetop. Mountain goats climb about the cliffs; badgers burrow among the rocks.

The moon keeps track of the seasons, the sun is in charge of each day. When it’s dark and night takes over, all the forest creatures come out. The young lions roar for their prey, clamoring to God for their supper. When the sun comes up, they vanish, lazily stretched out in their dens. Meanwhile, men and women go out to work, busy at their jobs until evening.

What a wildly wonderful world, God! You made it all, with Wisdom at your side, made earth overflow with your wonderful creations. Oh, look—the deep, wide sea, brimming with fish past counting, sardines and sharks and salmon. Ships plow those waters, and Leviathan, your pet dragon, romps in them. All the creatures look expectantly to you to give them their meals on time. You come, and they gather around; you open your hand and they eat from it. If you turned your back, they’d die in a minute—Take back your Spirit and they die, revert to original mud; Send out your Spirit and they spring to life—the whole countryside in bloom and blossom.

The glory of God—let it last forever! Let God enjoy his creation! He takes one look at earth and triggers an earthquake, points a finger at the mountains, and volcanoes erupt. Oh, let me sing to God all my life long, sing hymns to my God as long as I live! Oh, let my song please him; I’m so pleased to be singing to God. But clear the ground of sinners—no more godless men and women!

O my soul, bless God!

John Muir’s birthday is April 21; global Earth Day is April 22; my birthday is April 23.  John Muir celebrated a loving, earth-creating and superintending God—without Jesus.  Global Earth Day celebrants have gods of all sorts—or no God at all.  I celebrate a Creator God whose earth name is Jesus.  While I fully support the stewardship emphasis of Earth Day, my heart resonates with the emphasis of Thanksgiving: gratitude to the God who in Christ made it all. Consider this passage from the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome:

KEY SCRIPTURE:
Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles (Rom. 1:20-25).

I have often referenced the first declaration in the passage because it is a foundational scripture for Wonder of Creation.  But note this significant reason for the rejection of God in the center of the passage: “Although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him.” (Don’t you often wonder who atheists thank on Thanksgiving?).  Not giving glory to God or thanking Him for the creation, people soon become blind to God’s existence and simply end by worshiping the creation itself.

If you followed the path of the American holidays, you could see it as a path of thanksgiving: thanks for the bounty of earth from the hand of our Creator on Thanksgiving; thanks for the birth of our Creator/Savior on Christmas; thanks for our Creator’s giving us a new year with new opportunities to serve him on New Years; thanks for the substitutionary death and miraculous resurrection of our Creator/Savior on Easter; thanks for life anew from the Creator/Savior on Earth Day—celebrating with nature itself the coming “peaceable kingdom” when “all creatures here below” begin singing an eternal doxology; thanks for those who died that we might continue as a free nation on Memorial Day; thanks to our nation’s God-honoring founders for their sacrifice of life and livelihood to establish a free nation on Independence Day; and thanks to our Creator/Savior for life and health, both for us and the creation, that we can tend and care for His good earth on Labor Day.

Some of this biblical understanding and gratitude is echoed in President George Washington’s proclamation of October 3, 1789, when the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the national government of the United States of America was made official:

Thanksgiving Declaration:

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord. To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and Us, and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Wouldn’t it be grand if all those elected by the people of the United States, who serve in the city named after George Washington, wrote this proclamation on their hearts and minds and governed with this spirit of gratitude to our Creator, whose name is Jesus?

One of the Christian authors whose books I collect is Jacques Ellul, who died in 1994.  He was a very complex individual with some positions I don’t hold.  Nonetheless, he was a deep thinker and a constant critic of how the modern world is more the victim of technology than the master of it.  Charles Ringma, emeritus professor of missions and evangelism at Regent College in Vancouver, BC, has written a wonderful devotional booklet using the thought of Ellul: Resist the Powers: With Jacques Ellul.  It sits on my desk for an easy reach when I need to be challenged.

Now let me challenge you with Ellul.  Here’s a snippet from one of his articles that relates to the theme of this blogsite.  Let me know what you think about his views on this.

Stewardship and Love of Nature

Since nature is no longer sacred, man is taken to be the lord of nature.  But the essential thing has been forgotten: This nature is the creation of God, who handed it over to Adam and Eve—not to do as they pleased, but to manage and care for in the absence of God.

What does this mean?  From the perspective of the Hebrew Scriptures it means two things.  It means that God does not want to rule over His creation directly; He does not want creation to be an object that runs exactly the way He sets it up like some automatic mechanism.  God places people in nature precisely so that everything will not be submitted mechanically to some over-riding power, but in order “to give room to play.”  This in turn means that humanity (in the image of God) is called to act toward creation in the same way God does, although without His total power.  And this God is given the name love.  If God created, it is through love; if He gives independence to creation, it is through love.  We must treat nature in the same way, managing it not for blind and egotistical profit, but through love.  Such are the implications of the first chapters of Genesis.

“Christian Responsibility for Nature and Freedom”
by Jacques Ellul
From Cross Currents Spring 1985 pp. 49-53

Ellul worshiped with the Reformed community in France.  So he did not hold to deism, which claims that God created and then disappeared and let everything go on “automatic pilot.”  So my assumption is that by “the absence of God” he means the sort of absence Adam and Eve experienced when they were given the liberty to make choices in the Garden of Eden–the same sort of sensory absence of God we all experience today.  He believed God gave us the freedom to develop all the potentialities inherent in His good creation–but that development would be carried out with love.  If God “has compassion on all he has made,”  it seems reasonable that love for His creation would guide us in all our interactions with it. [Image source]

KEY SCRIPTURE:
The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made. All your works praise you, LORD; your faithful people extol you. They tell of the glory of your kingdom and speak of your might, so that all people may know of your mighty acts and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations. The LORD is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does (Psalm 145:9-13).

Not too long ago I confessed on Facebook that I often wish I could do more in motivating people to revel in the wonder of God’s creation and become better stewards of it.  I admitted that at times I feel that caring for creation will never rise high on the priority list of the conservative evangelical community of which I’ve been a lifetime citizen.  “Why do I feel like the weeping prophet Jeremiah, whose message was not heeded, and who ended up going into the Babylonian captivity with all the rest of the sinners? Why do I seem to model my life after his?” I asked.

Further, I mused, there are so many ways in which I fail as creation’s steward—failing at the very responsibility I encourage others to take up.  Jeremiah was far more successful in practicing what he preached. One kind correspondent reminded me that I was doing what I could do and that God will bless it.  Her words brought to mind the epitaph I saw a few years ago in a small cemetery beside a small Baptist church in the tidewater region of South Carolina.  When I first read it, I thought it was a put-down of a woman who did not accomplish much [Click on the photo to enlarge it]:

MEMORY
OF
MARGRET GLENN
BORN–1878
DIED  MAY 24  1940
SHE HATH DONE
WHAT SHE COULD

Though the phrase sounded familiar—and biblical, I could not recall where it appeared in the Bible.  Later I found it in the well-known story of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus with costly perfume:

KEY SCRIPTURE:
She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying (Mark 14:8 KJV. See context.)

When you think further on this and realize that it was Jesus who said the words, you understand that it clearly was not a put-down, but praise for a humble and sacrificial act of worship—an act of adoration that Mary likely never thought of as worship.  Margaret Glenn died two years before I was born in a tiny community near what is now the Congaree National Park.  Her undisturbed tomb is shrouded with Spanish moss, twigs, leaves, and acorns that have fallen from an over-draping southern live oak.

Doing what you can is truly worthy of high praise.  No doubt we all wish we could do big and grand things like those who have become legendary in Christian history—even like those who gain all sorts of media attention in our day for their talent, creativity, and great accomplishments.  But doing what you can is no doubt honored by our Savior and Lord, just as Mary’s act was.

Bob Jones as a young evangelist

My class at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, was the last one to have been mentored all four years by its founder.  He knew that few among the 3000 students present in his chapel services would become famous.  So he reminded us that “although you will wish you could shed light like the beautiful chandelier in the parlor that gains all the praise and attention, the truth is that being the bare bulb that hangs over the basement stairs and keeps the family members from breaking their necks may well be a far more important work.”

I pray, “Lord, make me worthy of the praise you gave Mary and the praise the Glenn family gave to their dear Margret, so that when I’m gone I could earn the epitaph “He did what he could.”