New Life

While walking through my neighborhood last week, I was amazed at the new growth - plants, trees, and grass all springing to life. The world is waking up again.  

I love the rhythm of seasons. No matter what is happening around us, our planet continues to orbit - revolving and rotating year after year. As we move through time and space, the weather changes, and as it does, so do our surroundings.  

All of nature knows what to do when the seasons change. It is intuitive - built into the DNA of every part of creation.  

As I was walking, I found a tree covered in green seed pods. I paused below it to take a picture. The sky was a gorgeous blue, and the seeds on the tree a radiant green. Within each seed, the possibility of new life.

Beyond nature, we see rhythms of rest and renewal reflected annually.  

In Scripture, we see several annual feasts and festivals laid out to help Israel remember who God is and who they are - special moments in the yearly calendar to slow down, recount God's faithfulness, and hope for the future.  

Beyond these feasts and festivals, we can find other rhythms for remembering God that have been established at various times in history. 

When Babylon captured Israel and God's people were in exile, the community leaders helped establish ways for the Jewish people to remember God when they couldn't worship at the temple. We see in Daniel 6 the practice of praying three times a day toward Jerusalem. In other Jewish writings, we read about the practice of fasting twice a week, as well as other practices established within the community.  

Eventually, the church calendar, which is familiar to many of us, was established. The focus of the church calendar is on remembering Jesus. I don't love how the church calendar came to be, but that is a conversation for another day. What I do like about the church calendar is the longer seasons of Advent, Lent, and Pentecost that invite us to slow down and pay attention.  

Much like creation knows what to do each season, we, too, know what to do when we embrace these annual rhythms of remembrance.  

During this season of Lent, we have been steadily moving toward the celebration of resurrection. The world is waking up around us - trees are blanketed with leaves, flowers are blooming, birds are returning to warmer climates, and all around us are signs of new life.  

I don't think it is a coincidence that resurrection happens in the spring. With every revolution and rotation of our planet, may we hold onto the hope that Jesus is King and that he will return to make all things new one day.  

~  Melissa