Dear one,
Perhaps with you, I now find that I am delighting in the signs of spring. Every few days I take a momentary survey: tulips and daffodils breaking the earth’s crust; maples budding faint red; spruces showing fresh green; and lilies boasting survival. I delight in these signs.
Equally, I am grateful that these signs coincide with that Christian tradition of Lent (i.e. the “lengthening” of daylight), which, rightly somber and reflective, leads to Easter Sunday. Thus it is that a wintry Lent promises a flowering Easter, whereby, according to our Western cultural traditions, we have bunny rabbits frolicking amid multi-colored Easter eggs—and children racing to find what’s hidden.
However, over the years I have recognized that our symbolic connection between springtime renewal and Easter does not work quite so well for those who live in the Southern Hemisphere—for them fall approaches—or for those who live in equatorial climates: green, lush growth seems perpetual. For these millions (billions?) who live in climes other than of our Euro-North American heritage, a facile connection between springtime renewal and Easter is not so easily achieved.
As spring approached, as He anticipated His own humiliation and death, Jesus observed:
“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).
By His observation—suggesting that a seed might be “buried” in the ground—Jesus implied that in the “spring of His life,” something other than a natural phenomenon would occur. I am no agronomist, but I understand that seeds, although apparently lifeless, are dormant, waiting to spring forth into life; whereas Jesus spoke of a dead seed bearing great fruit. Thus, in my mind, as He spoke of His death and resurrection, He understood a great disconnect between natural, springtime phenomena and realities beyond: super-natural realities.
Likewise, as recorded by Mark, the women at Jesus’ tomb encountered a reality fully other than any natural, springtime experience: “they fled from the tomb, for trembling and ecstasy held them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (Mark 16:8). Something or Someone altogether different had broken into their world of rhythm and routine, of seasons and cycles, of renewal and regeneration. This was not a springtime phenomenon.
Rest assured, in our home we have those symbols of springtime: bunnies and colored eggs; in our home we also have that symbol beyond nature: the cross.
Delighting in spring,
Stan