Wednesday 12 April 2023

Background

One of the most comforting pieces of gardening advice that I have been given is that plants want to grow even more than I want them to grow! Gardening is about, ‘sailing with the wind’ or 'going with the flow'. I must admit it doesn’t always feel that way and different people find different plants thrive for them. This year I have had difficulty getting my tomato seeds to germinate and normally they are the first to appear after the lettuce.

Jesus tells us that he came that we might have life abundantly (John10:10); we are created to ‘flourish’ and it takes a good deal to crush that. During March I read Edith Eger’s ‘The Choice’, a powerful and moving account of the Holocaust and its aftermath. I listened rather than read it and did so on my walks through a cold later winter. Her life flourishes despite the horrors, as the buds slowly burst after icy winds. Cut trees sprout anew (v. 7) and there is hope.

Job sees no such hope for people, for we are cut down and we die forever. However, Easter is concerned with even the hardest frost of death that reaches down deep into the soil to kill. To the claim ‘Christ is risen’, a new hope arises. Human flourishing is now limited only by the saving boundless love of God. 

While we are made to flourish, and the Resurrection shows that death is defeated finally, like plants we flourish best if provided with the right conditions. Love, of course, is essential and with it all the fruits for the Spirit. We exist as Church to be the tellers of the good news that the Crucified One is risen; and as the tellers we are the givers of such healing and encouragement that all those around us may know that fullness of life Jesus comes to bring.

To Ponder:

• Where do you find encouragement to be your best self?
• How are you able to be part of the flourishing of others?