"For the last few years, I have been trying to communicate with leaders of various Christian churches to urge them to bring protection and conservation of the environment into the mainstream of their faith and their teachings. I have been suggesting that Easter Monday could be a very good day for the entire Christendom to plant trees. If we could make that Monday a day of regeneration, revival, of being reborn, of finding salvation by restoring the Earth, it would be a great celebration of Christ's resurrection. After all, Christ was crucified on the cross. In a light touch, I always say, somebody had to go into the forest, cut a tree, and chop it up for Jesus to be crucified. What a great celebration of his conquering [death] it would be if we were to plant trees on Easter Monday in thanksgiving."
-Wangaari Maathai (1940-2011)
Full interview: Beliefnet: “Heaven is Green: An Interview with Wangari Maathai.”
Surely on Good Friday and on Easter, in one week out of our year, we affirm that the actual body of Jesus of Nazareth matters. There were heart muscles that stopped constricting, lung tissue which went limp, nerve endings which shot pain signals to the grey matter inside his cranium. And then three days later, the who/what that was resurrected allowed the women to behold him, Thomas to touch him, and Peter to feed him on the Sea of Galilee.
Wangaari Maathai, who founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977 and then won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, held firmly to her Roman Catholic faith throughout her lifetime. Today, except in special years, Kenya has an official National Tree Planting season, but not an official DAY. The Minister for Environmental, Water and Natural Resources launches the season in April or May depending on the long rain season. Within that timeframe, any Kenyan can declare “This is the day!” Maathai was fond of Easter Monday for tree-planting because of its religious connection. Just as we remind ourselves during Holy Week that the matter of Jesus’s body matters, in one brilliant thought Maathai reminds us that all the matter that surrounded Jesus also matters: “somebody had to go into the forest, cut a tree, and chop it up for Jesus to be crucified.” Maathai encouraged churches to plant trees on Easter Monday in thanksgiving of Christ’s conquering of death.
And we can also remind ourselves of the beginning of Jesus’s earthly ministry and not just its conclusion. As recorded in Luke 4, when Jesus entered the synagogue and opened the scrolls of Isaiah, we are familiar with this passage:
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Isaiah 61:1-2a)
If Jesus had read on, the audience would have heard what followed in the next two verses:
He has sent me . . .
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor.
What God accomplishes for and in and through his servants, including the Suffering Servant, is invariably “a planting of the Lord.”
On behalf of the Climate Intercessors Leadership Team,
You are very dear to God,
Lowell Bliss
