Spring is sprung
In the depths of winter, when everything is buried under so much snow, you wonder how anything can cling to life, what hope there is of anything growing again; you begin to think the car may never get off the drive again; you doubt that you will ever get warm again. Everything seems cold and desolate, frozen and abandoned.
And yet…
…Spring always comes
.
The sun does shine again; buds begin to form and to flower; shoots appear; the snow does go. Life does go on. From apparent death and hopelessness comes life and hope. After winter there is a spring. Some things in my garden have not survived the harsh winter, my eucalyptus is not at all well. Some plants are not made to over winter, they are designed for a time. But they do their bit for the soil, and on the compost do their bit for the next years plants. My rhubarb is sitting in last years rotted down pea shoots. Other new and interesting plants will grow where they once were. And the harshness of the winter, the warmth of the snow on the soil, will have nourished the soil for what is to come.
This is the message of Easter. From pain there is joy, from death there is life. All is not over. Life comes again. Life, perhaps not as we know it, but a life of joy and hope in the continuing presence of God.
For us, however bad and desolate things seem, it is not the end. Jesus has died – but has also risen. The old has gone – but the new has come – and look how beautiful it is, how fruitful it will be.
Pam's Perambulation 