Wednesday, March 15, 2017

                Back in the day, when I was more zealous about gardening, I would enjoy looking at various seed catalogues or gardening magazines on a cold, blustery day like today.  The pictures of flowers and plants, the gardening tips and the new types of gardening equipment were to me a sign of better things to come even if there was blowing snow swirling outside my window.

A catalogue from Lee Valley Tools would set my heart a-racing. Cottage Life would reveal new varieties and colours of garden flowers. We now get a quarterly magazine, Garden Gate, courtesy of my mother-in-law who is still a passionate gardener. The pictures of the gardens are breath-taking but are far beyond my present levels of energy and commitment that it would take to duplicate. Nevertheless, sitting here with my SAD light blazing, a cup of hot tea and cold, March winds whipping up the Ides of March, these same pictures promise the hope of warmer days ahead and that spring is coming - eventually. Underneath the snow, my little crocuses are waiting to burst up out of the soil.

I can find only one biblical reference to the noble crocus. The words are spoken to a people who are in captivity, despair and hopelessness. Their situation is compared to that of living in the wilderness. But this prophet, Isaiah, has the blatant audacity to speak these words as he promises them that the day will come when they will return to their homeland and be happy once again: “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing,” (Isaiah 35: 1 -2).

It took about seventy years for that “crocus” to actually bloom. I’m sure that it could not have been  easy to wait, to be patient, to believe in those words or have faith during those times. It would be human nature to become bitter or cynical, to doubt, to lose hope, to give up, to surrender. But Isaiah and others like him persisted that they keep hoping and trusting. They have it on good authority - God himself who speaks again in springtime words: “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring. They shall spring up like a green tamarisk, like willows by flowing streams,” (Isaiah 44: 3 – 5). (A tamarisk is an evergreen shrub.)

The language of fresh sprouts of hope in the midst of despair is also found in Isaiah 55 and worth repeating an extended piece of it.

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.  Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off,” (Isaiah 55: 10 – 13).

God’s “seed catalogue” gives me much to contemplate on a cold, wintry day.  This old world of ours could use some Good News. We have good friends who are in need of some good news. Maybe you are in need of some promising good news.

So, listen up! “See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them,” (Isaiah 42:9).

                It’s not going to snow forever, is it? 

Dale