As the season of spring continues, so too come longer days, hopes for new life, warmer weather, and reminders of God’s promises of new life. This month, we move through the final days of Lent and to the events of Holy Week- from Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday to Easter Vigil, and then the new life of Easter and the resurrection life. These are the central and high holy days of our faith, and we remember God’s story of bringing new life and new creation even amid the most uncertain, anxious, and dark days. At the same time, this month also means the start of planting season, Earth Day, Arbor Day, and collectively is a perfect opportunity to remember the goodness of all of God’s creation which God entrusts into our care. God is doing something new, cultivating new creation and new life, for me and for you, and for all of God’s beloved.

Questions for Reflection:

  • In what ways have you seen, witnessed, and experienced God cultivating creation?
  • How might God be inviting you to join in and cultivate creation?
  • What are two or three ways that you will cultivate creation this year?

Suggested Hymns and Songs:

All Things Bright and Beautiful (WOV 767)
As Rain from the Clouds (ELW 508)
Earth is Full of Wit and Wisdom (ACS 1064)
For the Beauty of the Earth (ELW 879 & LBW 561)

Other Theme Considerations and Potential Connections:

  • “Cultivating Creation” provides an intentional opportunity to look outward beyond the walls of your church or congregation, or even your home. It calls us to think bigger. To see the fields, rivers, lakes, oceans, mountains and all of the world that surrounds us. To care for them. And to remember that God calls us to care for and steward the earth, something God first instructed Adam in doing so in Genesis 2, and which we too are called to cultivate creation.
  • The April calendar includes the last days of Lent, Holy Week and Easter, in many contexts the beginning of the planting season, Earth Day and Arbor Day, and is also Arab American Heritage Month. Considering all of these observances, how might they provide opportunities to cultivate creation? Perhaps there might be an opportunity too in your congregational context to observe a sort of Rogation Sunday or blessing of the fields, crops, farm and agricultural equipment, etc., that might connect the faith we proclaim in worship with our everyday vocations.