For nearly forty years, Christians across the world have marked the beginning of September as a Season of Creation. It began in the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1989 and gradually became an ecumenical observance, inviting Christians to give thanks for the created world and to renew our responsibility for its care. This year, for the first time, the Church of England has given that observance a particular name and place in its calendar: the Festival of Creation in Christ, approved by General Synod back in July and celebrated today for the very first time.

The title is significant because today we are not simply adding “the environment” to a crowded list of Christian concerns. We are returning to the heart of our faith and asking the oldest, deepest question: Who is Jesus Christ?

Colossians answers in language vast enough to raise the roof. Christ is the image of the invisible God. All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

All things.

Curlew and whale, worm and ash tree, ocean current and child drawing breath. All created through Christ.  All held in Christ.  All destined for Christ. Creation is not scenery behind the human drama, raw material awaiting our appetite, or a disposable stage God will abandon. The whole creation has its beginning, coherence and future in Christ.

This is why this festival is called Creation in Christ. Creation care begins not with carbon, but with Christ; not with guilt, but with glory; not merely with our duty, but with his identity. And that makes the challenge sharper, not softer.

For we cannot say that all things hold together in Christ whilst living as though only useful things matter. We cannot praise the maker of forests whilst stripping them without restraint or bless the Lord of the seas whilst filling them with waste. We cannot receive bread and wine as holy gifts whilst at the same time treating soil, water, creature and neighbour as expendable. Ecological indifference is not simply a failure of responsibility. It is a refusal to honour Christ.

And then Matthew, in today’s Gospel, takes us into a storm.

The boat is swallowed by waves. The disciples know real danger. They offer no calm theological reflection. They cry, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” And Jesus is asleep.

Here is the scandal: the one in whom all things hold together appears to be sleeping while everything is falling apart. And perhaps that is where many of us find ourselves. We inhabit a world of burning forests, polluted rivers, vanishing species and communities carrying floods they did least to cause. We pray, campaign, change what we can – and still the storm roars and grows. “Lord, do you not care? Are you asleep?”

Jesus responds by asking, “Why are you afraid?” Then he rises and rebukes the winds and sea. In Scripture, the sea is more than water. It is the ancient image of chaos: the force that refuses order, the deep that threatens life. Jesus speaks, and the chaos knows its Lord. No wonder the disciples ask, “What sort of man is this?”

Our first reading from Colossians provides us with the answer: this is the one through whom the sea itself was made. He is not a visitor trespassing in creation. Creation answers its source. The wind and waves obey because they are already his.

Yet we must not turn this Gospel story into a cheap promise that faithful people will always enjoy calm weather. Boats sink. Prayers are spoken into roaring wind. Creatures and human lives are already being lost. The greater promise is not that Christ keeps himself safely beyond the storm. It is that Christ is with us in the boat.

The Creator has entered creation. The one before all things has become flesh among all things: breathing our air, drinking our water, walking our soil, sharing the terror of the waves. And Colossians carries us further: through Christ, God reconciles all things by making peace through the blood of his cross. All things again.

But Colossians does not leave Christ upon the cross. He is also “the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.” Cross and resurrection are bound together. The cross without resurrection would be one more execution. Resurrection without the cross would become cheap triumph, untouched by the world’s wounds. But the crucified Christ is risen, and the risen Christ remains the crucified one.

The hands through which creation came to be are stretched upon the wood – and those wounded hands belong to the risen Lord. God enters violence, estrangement and death, and breaks their power from within. Our hope is neither optimism nor escape. It is the crucified and risen Christ.

Because creation is made in Christ, it is precious. Because creation is held in Christ, it is not abandoned. Because creation is reconciled in Christ, its wounds concern the Gospel. Because creation is destined for Christ, our labour for its healing is never wasted.

So how are we to respond?

First, we need to learn again to attend; to receive the world not as owner, but as creature; not as consumer, but as neighbour; not asking only, “What can I take?” but, “What is Christ holding here?” And then repent. Repent not vaguely, but honestly: repent of habits that waste, systems that exploit, investments that harm, comforts whose cost is borne by the poor, and the convenient lie that individual virtue excuses collective injustice.

And act. Cherish particular places. Defend particular creatures. Use less. Share more. Ask difficult questions of churches, businesses and governments. Be empathetic allies beside communities already in the storm. Let prayer become policy, worship become witness, gratitude become costly love.

But unlike the disciples do not act from panic. Panic grabs, hoards and finally despairs. Act from the peace of Christ – from the deep assurance that the world is not held together by our competence but is held together by Christ’s immeasurable love and grace.

Today the Church keeps a new festival by confessing an ancient faith: Christ before all things.  Christ sustaining all things.  Christ holding all things.  Christ reconciling all things.

The storm is real. The danger is real. The damage is real. But Christ is in the boat. And the creation which came through him, which is held in him, and for which he shed his blood, is not disposable, not forgotten, and not beyond hope.

So let us rise from fear. Let us turn from indifference. Let us join the praise already sounding through feather and forest, river and rain. And let us live as those who trust that every creature is held within the wounded, risen and reconciling love of Christ. For in him all things hold together. Even here.  Even now.  Even in the storm.

Amen.