This has been an unusually warm winter here in the Pacific Northwest, even with the unexpected snowfall in the third week of March.
The magnolia tree in my front yard (if it’s really that. Unclear) has buds fat with promise. My lilac tree has decided my delay in pruning the dead heads isn’t reason enough to stop pushing out new growth.
The death of winter is slowly being cracked open by the promise of spring. Even the threat of a last-minute frost is not enough to dissuade life, slowly but stubbornly making its appearance in every crack and crevice.
I love the quiet rebellion of nature refusing to stay dead.
There’s a point at the beginning of February where you can start to think this barren skin-cracking winter is never going to leave. Like you’re stuck in some endless Groundhog Day where winter is forever another 6 weeks away, and you’ll never again feel the warmth of the sun on your arms.
And yet every spring, every spring, there’s a subtle warming of the air, and you witness a quiet but persistent revolution.
Maybe you’re walking through a season that feels exceptionally barren and particularly long. The second week of February. It looks like everything is dead as dead can get.
But as sure as brown shifts to green, and life slowly, then forcefully, invades every part of the world, I know that the same can be said for you.
How do I know this for certain?
Two ways. Once terribly obvious and the second eternally consequential.
You’re not dead. Li-ter-a-lly.
You’re reading this. You have life coursing through your veins, breath heaving your chest in and out. It may not seem like much when your feet are weighed down by concrete, your dreams are lying in shambles, and your heart feels ready to splinter under the weight of all you’re carrying.
But I promise. You’re not as dead as you feel. As long as there is still life in you, there is still a rebellious opportunity for hope.
Second, I know a guy.
Not just any guy. This one, He can work with less than most. A whisper of life is all He needs.
A .001% chance.
And even then. He’s been known to do miracles with a whole lot less.
You could say he thrives in the barren places, bringing life from death and resurrecting dreams and hope where you had settled for grief and despair.
Last weekend, I watched a dear friend walk down the aisle with her 10-year-old son toward her next great love story. Widowed at 28 years old, with three kids, that dream seemed dead. It was dead. Buried in the ground. For five years, we prayed and waited, while she went on dates and got her heart broken.
And yet there we stood, celebrating with tears running down our faces as we watched fractured pieces come together to make something new, something whole.
Next weekend, I’ll gather with others to celebrate a chunky two-month-old whose mama found her 8 years of infertility shattered unexpectedly. She got the news a year ago, standing in my bathroom trying to decipher a pregnancy test. My children watched us weep, a miracle playing out before their own little eyes. Doctors had said this couple only had a .001% chance.
Turns out, all you need is a chance.
Anchored right in the middle is the reason these moments even exist.
Good Friday, where death seemed to claim the ultimate victory.
And then Easter Sunday, when the whole expected order was blown off its hinges.
That guy knows how to bring life out of death because He lived it. Right after He died. Ever since then, he’s been making the sad things untrue, refusing to let death have the final word: on our dreams, on our marriages, on our families, our homes, our own battered selves.
You might be walking into this Good Friday wondering if there’s anything good left in this world. Maybe you’re struggling to see where death could ever be cracked open to give way to life. Maybe you’re just weary of living in a world unraveling.
By yourself, I’m telling you, you’re right. It’s impossible. Evil looms large, and death is insatiable.
But I know a guy. And the greatest miracle that ever was suddenly turns all of what could be on its head. Young widows stay tender, grieving parents exude joy, barren wombs get filled. Dark days lose their grip in a kaleidoscope of soul-filling moments like sun slanting across the floor, notes from friends, and warm cookies on a Tuesday afternoon. The ordinary becomes extraordinary when we realize it’s all a gift.
A taste of what is to come for those who know the Death-Defeater, Carpenter-King, Messiah.
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”[a]
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.57
But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:55
Happy Easter, friends.
Jo x
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