Easter
Easter is my favorite season. Christmastime in the northern hemisphere is dark and cold, underscoring our dependence upon Christ, “the light [that] shineth in darkness.” The earth itself testifies to that, with Easter season symbolically fulfilling the hope promised by Christ’s birth. Each new day between the end of Christmas and the beginning of Easter sees the sun rise a little earlier, the days gradually warming, birdsong returning, new plant life sprouting. The changes can be difficult to detect from day to day but, without fail, they come.
This year our family planted a small garden (spring comes early in the Phoenix area). My children are young enough that, though we’ve planted gardens before, it’s still thoroughly wondrous. And they’re exactly right. Have you held a seed in your hand? Can you observe anything that indicates what it will become, or how? Why should a tiny seed, when placed in the earth, become something so beautifully and inexplicably greater than anything it’s initial size and shape could possibly suggest?
God gives beauty for ashes. He is the great Cultivator, whose merciful ingenuity clothes even the grass of the field. Whatever he touches takes on dimensions wholly indeterminable from the outset. It takes faith to commit oneself to the process whereby we attain that as-of-yet unimaginable promise, but every winter turned spring testifies to God’s constancy. He is a God of life. The question is not whether the sun is shining, but whether we will respond to its warmth and light.
In the meantime, tell your friends!