Lent 2014 – Devotion 16

This year March 20 marks the first day of Spring. A couple of weeks ago on “Prairie Home Companion,” Garrison Keillor was extolling that spring had finally come to Minnesota. Temperatures were no longer below zero. It was up in the 30’s. Everyone was giddy with delight. Having lived in Minnesota for 7 years, I can attest to the radical transformation that happens to the earth in such an extreme northern clime. It truly is magical and miraculous. People are practically drunk with elation at the greening of springtime.

Here in Florida the transition from winter to spring is not nearly as extreme. We have certain natural markers of the spring season like oak pollen. Has your car been covered with that yellow dust? And the light changes. But the transition here is subtle compared with “up north.”

The coming of spring is significant in many religious traditions ancient and modern. Humankind has seen divine revelation in the transformation of the earth from the dead, barren, gray-brown of winter to the riot of color and profusion of life that erupts in the springtime. Spring is a reminder of the radical newness and potential for transformation that is inherent in life. Throughout the centuries, Christians have seen the spring as a symbol of new life in Christ, of forgiveness, grace, and transformation.
The stunning conversion of the earth in the spring inspires wonderful images of God’s amazing, life giving power.

Here in the balmy south, we don’t experience the radical re-awakening of the earth. We don’t witness the drastic visual transformation from blanketed white to a palette of blue, green, lilac, pink, red, and yellow. It’s like going from a black and white TV to a color TV those few weeks when everything thaws and buds and blooms. The drastic change in the earth fuels dreams of radical growth; physical, spiritual, emotional, social, and intellectual. Could it be that our more subtle change of season leads to lower expectations for transformation and change and growth? Could our gradual, more subdued seasonal transition lead to more complacency, less promise of radical change?

To step up our hopes and dreams for a new world, to inspire our faith in the incredible power of Divine Love, maybe we, here in this mild climate, need to go out of our way to surround ourselves with reminders of all things spring. We can read poetry about springtime and view images of spring and take delight in flowers and greenery. Lent, though a stark time of introspection, is also a time let our hopes and dreams and expectations soar. It is a time to remind ourselves of all that is promised and delivered by God.

Prayer: We give thanks for this season of spring and its many meanings and associations. May this season of new life inspire new life in us. May this be a season in which we burst forth with new growth that brings life and beauty to the world. Amen.