Seeds

It may still be winter, but the days are getting longer, and spring will be here before we know it.  The Lenten season we are about to enter takes its name from the Anglo-Saxon word lencten, or “lengthen,” referring to the lengthening hours of daylight as spring approaches. It’s a hopeful name for a season of penitence and reflection, pointing the way to better days to come.  The barren branch is about to bud and flower.  The buried bulb is about to burst out of the ground in green shoots.

As I began reflecting this year on what Lent means, and how to make sense of Lenten practices—fasting, sacrifice, meditating on scripture, reaching out in mercy to neighbors—one verse of scripture kept sounding in my mind.  Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).  Jesus is describing a fruitful sacrifice.  To be buried in the earth is to be confined and hidden away from sight, to all appearances dead and forgotten, as though thrown away.  But a seed is planted in the earth in faith—faith in what the seed can become, in God’s hands and in due time.  Jesus spoke these words to explain the significance of his own “hour” (12:23)—that is, his offering of his own life for the sake of us, his friends.  But he also intended his fruitful sacrifice to be a pattern for the rest of us.  In denying ourselves, in refusing to prioritize our own needs and desires, in letting go of goods and grievances for the sake of our neighbor, we fall like a seed into the gentle earth and God’s hands, and an entirely new order of future life becomes possible.  Viewed in this way, sacrifice is not a heroic or foolish self-annihilation, but an act of faith and hope.

I invite you to a fruitful Lenten season of self-examination and penitence, prayer and fasting, works of love, and meditating on God’s Word.  I hope you will join us for the fellowship and growth of our Lenten Soup suppers on Wednesdays at 6:00, beginning on Ash Wednesday, February 18.  Spring and warmth and sunshine are on their way.  Are you ready to sprout and bloom?

A version of this item appeared in the February 2015 issue of the Highlands Highlights newsletter.