The creation was made through Christ (John 1:3, Colossians 1:16). It was and is remade in him. He is the firstborn of creation (Colossians 1:15); in him all things are made anew (2 Corinthians 5:17). In Christ, all things hold together (Colossians 1:17). Yet where there is renewal there is shattering: where there is birth there is pain, blood, rupture. The new coming-into-being that Christ enabled occurred not as a bloodless, sterile event, but as something visceral, even foetid. There is nothing clean or immaculate about creation: it is messy and often wasteful; it has many casualties (Southgate 2008). It is, above all, profoundly material and, from the point of view of humans, profoundly animal.