Outside, a
white frost covers the ground.
Shrivelled brown stalks stick up out of the bare earth, and the trees
stand leafless against the steely sky.
The light comes late, and leaves early, casting long shadows as it
goes. Life and colour has faded away. This is the season of death.
Yet we know
that under the frosty soil, seeds and roots are preparing for their rebirth in
spring. Green shoots will sprout,
dancing daffodils appear, and the world will come to life once more. And between the death and the life, we
celebrate Christmas.
We don’t
fear the death of winter, because we know that it is only the prelude to new
life. Jesus, too, spoke of his death as
the means to glory, and used the analogy of a seed in winter. If a grain of wheat isn’t buried, he said, it
stays just that: one solitary seed. But
when it dies, it can bring forth a whole new plant, bursting with heads of
grain. And he issues a challenge, recorded
by all four gospel writers: Do you value your life enough to risk losing it?
But then we
learn that our lives have already been lost.
“Don’t you know that everyone who has been baptized, has been baptized
into Jesus’ death?” says Paul. That
decision to follow Jesus has already taken us through death and into a
different kind of life. The symbolic
burial of baptism – in many churches, shown by a plunge into a pool of water –
unites us with Christ on the cross and gives us the gift of his resurrection. Although winter is still all around us, we
know that spring is coming.
So now we
have new eyes to look at life and death.
Jesus’ coming reduced our lives to worthless husks, yet gave them more
value than we ever imagined. And death
is no longer the ultimate and fearful doom.
Its sting has been pulled; it is now merely a pause on our journey to
eternity.
We still
grieve, of course. We still get angry,
we still mourn, we still weep. We still
cry out over the unfairness, the insanity of it all. We still miss the ones we love.
But now we
have a hope that can overcome the fear of death. The hope that Christmas marks the crossing
point from winter to spring. The hope in
a baby who brought life into the world – and who died, and who brought life
again. The hope that there’s a new plant
inside every buried seed.
This
Christmas, may the fear of winter be taken from you, and the hope of spring be
planted in your heart.
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