“For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in
pain together until now.”
Last evening, the finale of a particularly warm, soft April day, my
siblings and I came upon a baby squirrel, no bigger than my hand, that had been
mangled by some animal. It was lying on the moss, clinging to some leaves with
its tiny hands and groaning a high pitched, tiny little groan. We made a bed of
moss for it in a little container and brought it inside where it could be safe
from predators. My siblings watched over it with compassion and concern and my
mom tried to feed it some milk and peanut butter. Its hind legs and tail were limp;
I think its back was broken. When I went to check on it later in the night,
it was dead.
As I reached out to touch its velvet gray fur I felt guilty.
I saw first hand the effects of sin. I realized that this innocent animal
didn’t partake in the Fall, but it was affected by it. Sin often doesn’t impact the sinner in isolation, but
the bystanders as well. And beautiful creation - God’s perfect, good,
masterwork creation - literally groans; I heard it groan last night.
I wept over that suffering little squirrel, not for the
animals sake – it’s just an animal without the ability to self-reflect or
understand – but because I grieved over the weight and darkness of my sin.
Over the pain and travail – the groaning – it causes in a world that longs to
return to Eden. I ached with longing, homesickness, for a place
I was created for but have never known. A new Eden.
But, in the world of the loving God, there is always hope.
Because the groaning isn’t forever, and the beautiful creation knows it, and
waits. The travail is a labor pain until the restoration of Eden. My sin,
however bleak, is purged. The great at-one-ment accomplished. Soon, creation’s
agonized wait will be over. The groaning
will be over.
Our wait will be over.
“He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will
wipe away tears from
all faces.”
