At first glance, my gardens look depressing. The jumbled mixture of last year’s stems turned a blackish brown and piles of rotten leaves are not enhanced by the garbage that winter collected and stored amongst them. I knew when I neglected the gardens last fall, spring wouldn’t be pretty. However, if you look closely, you’ll see the promise of new life, new life which will turn to slender green leaves and delicate lilies or any number of breathtaking flowers.
Spring carries with it Easter, and Easter can remind us of another bleak view offering the promise of renewal. After His bloody crucifixion, Jesus lay in the tomb for three days; cold, dead, not pretty. The miracle of His resurrection from the dead brought humankind the possibility of new life, and not only new life, but renewal for the old sticks, rotten leaves, and garbage we’ve left in our lives.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Cor. 5:17 KJV)
“If Spring came but once in a century , instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous and the perpetual exercise of God’s power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow