Towards Daylight

As I ponder spring, I see the world wake again from it's wintery slumber. I am feeling that biting wind become a lazy, fragrant breeze. It doesn't sting as it did not long ago, rather, it brushed past me with a delicate whisper of renewal.

I saw hopeful green buds on a tree today. I saw crocuses on my front lawn last night. Random little violet blossoms that studded the pathway to my front door. They weren't planted there...but they somehow found their way to my corner of the world, and laid dormant until the symphony of spring commenced, and called them into life.

They were there before my knowing. Their destiny road mapped long before the snow receeded, and they were summoned to grow.

What about the seeds inside each of us? What about the winter of dormancy that causes us to lose hope in the beauty of the future bloom? The growing is hard...it is under the soil, it is in the darkness of the earth that the real work is being accomplished. And at the moment of fruition... where the struggle to make it out of the seed, and to journey toward fresh air and the warmth of the sunlight is realised...the proof is concrete...the result is definite....it ALL makes perfect sense in that instant.

In essence...if you are looking for an analogy, those things that are the most beautiful in life, often come out of the mire of our hopelessness. In nature, seeds need to go into the earth, in order to develop into their authentic, exquisite, predestined brilliance. They have no other choice, but to listen to the gentle awakening...and to begin the journey towards daylight. And when the breakthrough has been made, and the vibrancy of the flower is demonstrated, it is for the world to see...it is a declaration of the journey...it was WORTH it.

And this weekend, as I ponder my Saviours death, I reflect back on the parallel nature of these visuals. Jesus died...and was put into the earth. His death was the acceptable ransom, that allows ME to live under the umbrella of God's unfailing grace and mercy. And just as the world would believe, that the story surely ends once a body lays in the tomb...I am resolute in confirming...death doesn't win when the earth swallows the body.. and the grave doesn't complete the story. My friend, the story merely laid dormant for 3 days...and on that glorious Sunday, death lost its sting as Jesus burst from the earth, VICTORIOUS over the grave.


On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we'll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: mortal will be replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:

Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who's afraid of you now?
It was sin that made death so frightening and guilt that gave sin its leverage and destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three — sin, guilt, death — are gone, the gift of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Thank God!
~1 Corinthians 15:55-58