A Time for Unity for Our Earth

By: Jay Horton, Georgia Interfaith Power & Light's Communications Coordinator

Only once, roughly every 30 years, do Easter, Passover, and Ramadan coincide: major holidays for three faiths that share a common ancestry. While some may see this as mere coincidence, the timing harkens to a call for deeper humility and unity in a time of turbulence and division.

Rising temperatures, flooding, landslides, tornados and other natural disasters threaten communities everywhere. People of faith must see providence in the synchronicity of these holidays in 2023.

Christianity, Judaism and Islam are what are commonly known as Abrahamic faiths, meaning all three can trace their birth to the patriarch Abraham. Christianity and Judaism through Abraham’s son Isaac and Islam through his son Ishmael. The religions are effectively siblings. 

During Passover, Jews remember their time in slavery in Egypt, the Exodus, God’s gift of the ten commandments, and the promise of continual liberation. Passover lasts seven days in Israel and eight days everywhere else. It is marked by a Seder, or a ritual feast with limited kosher foods, that assists in personal and communal reflection about the sacrifices of their ancestors. Practicing Jews throughout Passover also only consume unleavened bread, Matzo, in accordance with God’s commands.

Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam and commemorates the first revelation of the faith’s founder and prophet, Muhammad. It is a period of thirty days of reflection and prayer where practicing Muslims purify themselves and seek to draw closer to the Divine. Part of this purification involves fasting from sunup to sundown daily. The hope is that in self-denial one might improve relationships with God, community, creation, and self. 

Similarly, but to a lesser extent, Christians observe a season of self-examination during Lent, the forty days leading up to Easter. These forty days represent the forty days Jesus wandered in the wilderness before his crucifixion. It is a penitent season where Christians abstain from earthly desires, remembering their mortality and preparing themselves to witness to the suffering, death, and ultimately, resurrection of their Savior, Jesus. They are reminded that death does not get the last word. 

What you may notice is that each of these holidays have a common call for greater intentionality. The Passover Seder, and fasts of Lent and Ramadan, are times to cleanse one’s heart and renew one’s love for God and neighbor. 

Ecologically speaking they are all times to remember not only global environmental inequity and the suffering of Creation—the death and plagues that affect the planet—but also the hope in God that all is not lost. Liberation from slavery and death, and the promise of paradise are possible.

How can small acts of self-denial this year remind us that all life is sacred?

As we decenter self in the care of neighbor and creation, we learn that we do not do this work alone either. We have siblings in faith on a common journey with us. Let this be a time of hope and rejoicing, unity and faith. Chag Sameach, Happy Easter, and Ramadan Mubarak!