John Calvin wrote, “There is not one blade of grass, not one color in this world, that is not intended to make us rejoice.”

I love that quote because it affirms that the whole of creation was and continues to be a place where we humans exercise our identity as bearers of the divine image. We were created to be prophets, priests, kings and queens of creation. Everything that our senses encounter; what we smell, see, hear, feel, and taste is a gift of God to human beings.  We are not “divine” beings with special powers to fly or appear and disappear at will like angels. We are creatures created in the divine image and as such we are a special creation that is supposed to have dominion over creation.

But we know we do not have dominion. We lost much of the power when Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden.  Hence the author of Hebrews writes, “As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them.” We have a taste of the divine charge of dominion, but we still deal with rainy seasons and dry seasons, earthquakes and tornados, incivility and unrest, and ultimately we experience death which illustrates our loss of dominion over creation.  What is the answer? The writer concludes our passage by writing, “⁹ but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory in Jesus Christ. We look forward to that promise in Revelation 21.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ² And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,