By Pastor Nissa Peterson
Chatfield and Root Prairie
Lutheran Churches
One of the things I love so much about spring is watching as different plants begin to sprout and grow. It starts with my daffodils, irises, and tulips. Then the grass begins to green, and buds on trees slowly begin to become leaves. It always feels like a miracle to have new growth and new life after a long and unforgiving winter.
The miracle of new life is what we celebrate at Easter, too! Jesus rose from the ground, new life from death. Jesus was buried in the ground but arose to new life. The same way seeds are buried in the soil to grow and bear fruit. Jesus told the disciples this long before his death:
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
In the middle of winter we can hardly remember what spring and summer are like. Similarly, in the face of the death of someone we love, it is hard to remember the promise of new life, and hard to remember a time before the grief and pain.
The dark and cold can seem like they are the end of the story. And yet spring comes every year, without fail (no matter how much April & May snow shows up). And every year when we journey through Holy Week, Jesus rises from the tomb on Easter – despite the bleak agony of Good Friday.
Death isn’t the end of our story, because Jesus rose from the tomb. Like the new growth in spring, Jesus rises again.
A favorite Easter hymn proclaims this truth beautifully:
Now the green blade rises
from the buried grain,
wheat that in dark earth
many days has lain;
love lives again, that with
the dead has been;
love is come again like wheat arising green.
In the grave they laid him,
love by hatred slain
thinking that he would never wake again,
laid in the earth like grain
that sleeps unseen;
love is come again like wheat arising green.
Forth he came at Easter like
the risen grain,
he that for three days in the
grave had lain;
raised from the dead,
my living Lord is seen;
love is come again like
wheat arising green.
When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
your touch can call us back
to life again,
fields of our hearts that dead
and bare have been;
love is come again like wheat arising green.
(Hymn: “Now the Green Blade Rises,” from Evangelical Lutheran Worship 2006. Text by Charles H. Gabriel.)
Holy God, let us rejoice in the new life that grows each spring. Let us rejoice because of Jesus, who rose from the tomb, defeating death. Let us put our trust in you when we walk through the cold nights of winter, knowing that the warm brightness of new life is found in you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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