Enjoy this extract from our 2025 Lent book, The Whole Easter Story: Why the cross is good news for all creation, by Jo Swinney. Beginning with the personal and individual, over the six weeks of Lent Jo explores the profound meaning of Easter beyond personal spirituality, showing how the cross transforms not just our own individual connection with Jesus, but also our relationships with each other and our world. The book includes drawings by Jo that showcase A Rocha’s conservation work around the world.
16 February 2025
Day 1: Created
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
PSALM 139:13–16
Fingerprints and other quirks
I have twice had the strange experience of growing a human in my body. At first the only evidence of their existence was a pink line on a plastic stick. After a few weeks they made me feel very sick, and then they grew big enough to give me a bump and a great deal of discomfort. When I look at my teenage daughters, I find it hard to connect these beautiful, fully grown and increasingly independent people with anything that might have gone on inside me.
We may have sophisticated scanning equipment now that makes the womb slightly less secret, but I can still relate to the idea that babies develop in ‘the depths of the earth’, a process shrouded in mystery and deep darkness.
I can also confirm that I was not a consciously active participant in the task of taking Alexa and Charis from being a couple of cells to fully formed babies. It was God who created them, who breathed life into their beings, who gave them their fingerprints, their temperaments, their quirks and tendencies.
As humans we have become very clever in certain regards. We know our bodies are composed of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, calcium, phosphorus, sulphur, potassium, sodium, chlorine and magnesium, among other elements. But we have no clue how to combine those elements into a living, breathing, emotional and spiritual being.
The Sokoke scops owl: Dakatcha – A Rocha Kenya’s nature reserve of threatened woodland – offers the perfect habitat for Africa’s smallest owl and twelve other species on the IUCN’s Red List.
God the creator
As we begin to consider our relationship with God in the context of the Easter story, a good place to start is with the fact he is creator, and we are created. We were created as Homo sapiens, a distinct species among many, imprinted with the very image of God (Genesis 1:27), and we were each and every one of us created, seen, significant and loved before one of our days came to be.
I have heard the story told from a different starting point, as I imagine you have. Sometimes it is told like this: people are awful; we are dirty, sinful, horrid things, and we took God right to the end of his tether, so he had to come and die for us.
But the Bible doesn’t start with sin; it starts with creation, and that makes all the difference to how we understand our relationship with God. Let’s dig into Psalm 139 and you’ll see what I mean.
Psalms are songs reflecting the experience of their authors’ lives with God and infused with references to early sections of scripture, books of history, prophecy, poetry and apocalypse. They were written long before the life of Jesus, but in the understanding that all too often humankind was failing, corporately and individually, to keep their side of the covenant promises that framed their relationship with God.
King David led his people into so many bloody battles that he was forbidden from building a temple. His relationship history would definitely have earned him a well-deserved ‘Love Rat’ tabloid splash. He worshipped God with all his heart but sometimes cursed him too. In all this complexity, one thing was clear: as a being created by God, he knew his intrinsic worth was never up for debate – ‘Your works are wonderful’ (v. 14).
The white-naped mangabey: A Rocha camera traps confirmed the presence of this monkey in the Atewa Forest in 2017, the first photo ever taken of this species in Ghana.
Fearfully and wonderfully made
David’s language in Psalm 139 describes a very hands-on process of making – he uses words like ‘knit’ and ‘woven’. These crafts involve patterns, but patterns which allow for creativity. Each human is like others, and at the same time unique. We are wired with a need for significance, to have a place, to be seen and known as an individual, not just a speck in a blurry crowd of billions, and thankfully we have a God with the capacity to relate to each of us – ‘Your eyes saw [me]… all the days ordained for me were written in your book’ (v. 16).
We can base our self-esteem on everything from an annual appraisal at work, to the number of hearts under our Instagram posts, to how many people show up to our birthday drinks, but why would we? Each of us has been ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ (v. 14) by our ever-loving creator God.
Southern festoon: This butterfly is on the threatened species list in France – it depends on one unique plant and a specific habitat. The team in the Vallée des Baux (near Arles) has been managing its habitat and studying its population for over a decade.
For reflection
Think about some of the people who have shaped how you see yourself, from parents to teachers, to friends and spouses, to employers and media figures.
How much power have you given their voices? How can you let God’s voice speak more loudly, and what would change if you decided to listen only to him when it comes to your worth?
Prayer
Abba, Father, I am yours. You meant me to be here, and you look at me with love and pleasure. Your knowledge of me is deeper than I can fathom. My feelings, motivations and impulses are laid bare before you. I can’t deceive you; I can’t hide from you. Thank you that your commitment to me is unshakeable. Amen.
