One
winter, a little girl received in the mail a gift from
someone who said he loved her very much. In her
excitement she tore open the package only to find it was
a box of dirt. The note said to water the soil and then
wait for the surprise. The little girl did as the
instructions said and waited patiently for days. When
nothing happened, she was disappointed and finally
decided to get rid of the dirty box and put it in the
basement. She quickly forgot about it until spring came
when she was helping her father clean up. As she was
sweeping, she again discovered the box but it was still
nothing but dirt, she got angry and flung it out into
the back yard, saying, "There! What kind of present is
this?" As time went by, the days got sunnier and warmer
until one Sunday morning as she dressed for church she
looked out her window and saw a beautiful Easter lily
standing tall in the grassy yard.
Despite the little girl's
neglect, the lily bloomed. It had received a drink of
water, it was shoved and imprisoned in a cold, damp,
dark cellar and then kicked out the door to be lost
among the weeds. The hot sun shone down on the dirt that
buried it. And, yet one day it waved its white blossoms
in the spring breeze.
We pretty much ignore such a
small event because it happens every year. Just a few
short weeks ago, the ground was covered with snow. But
today, the yard is filled with crocuses and daffodils.
Forsythia bushes are ablaze with yellow. And stores like
Home Depot and Lowes are filled with packages of seeds
and bulbs, potting soil, and fertilizer, waiting for us
to pop them in the ground. It seems so ordinary, yet,
for this little bulb to grow into a flowering plant is
quite significant.
Have you ever tried to "force" a
bulb to bloom out of season? I have to laugh at the
concept, "force." It makes me think of a farmer standing
over a pile of bulbs waving a spade in the air shouting,
"Grow, flower, grow, or I'll hit you with my shovel!"
No. Instead, it requires knowledge of a plant's life
cycle. The little girl accidentally stumbled on the
right steps, but most folks who work in greenhouses
providing tropical plants for residents of snowy
climates know they actually become the servants of a
process, a life force that existed long before them.
Contained within this small bulb is everything that is
needed for a gladiola plant. If you cut it in half, you
will find the beginning of new life: the stem, the
roots, folded leaves, the bud of the flower and a
storehouse of nutrients. What is needed is for it to be
buried in the earth for the new life to begin.
Jesus understood this process,
well. He says, 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." A
grain of wheat, though so much smaller than a tulip
bulb, goes through the same kind of process. It dies to
itself to initiate the transformation to a plant and the
plant to produce more grain or more flower bulbs. In
dying, it gives life to others. Jesus used this image to
describe the purpose of his death. While he lived, he
would teach and heal and raise folks from the dead - but
at his own death, he would send the Holy Spirit and
bring new life to all.
Earlier in the gospel of John,
Jesus was speaking in the temple at the end of the
Festival of Booths. "Let anyone who is thirsty come to
me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the
scripture has said, 'Out of the believer's heart shall
flow rivers of living water.' Now he said this about the
Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as
yet there was no Spirit because Jesus was not yet
glorified."
Rivers of living water. What
life can exist without water? Certainly the Samaritan
woman at the well, understood that need. Even Jesus had
asked her to draw him some to drink after a hot and
dusty journey. But then he somehow turned the request
around. He tells her, (John 4:13-14) Everyone who drinks
of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink
of the water that I will give them will never be
thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them
a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.
Later when Jesus is speaking to
his disciples, (John 14: 16) he promises that he will
send an Advocate to be with them forever. This is the
Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because
it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because
he abides with you, and he will be in you."
The image of the Holy Spirit as
the water of life takes us to our baptism in which we
are reborn children of God and inheritors of eternal
life. We pray, "Pour out your Holy Spirit, so that those
who are here baptized may be given new life." "Pour out
the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of
counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear
of the Lord, the spirit of joy in your presence."
At Baptism we receive the Holy
Spirit and through the water we are given new life. But
it is only a beginning. Like the seed or the bulb that
receives that drink of water, it begins to send out its
roots in order to nourish itself by a precious source of
life. Whether the soil is sandy or rocky, it will slowly
anchor itself before it ever blooms into something new.
Jesus said, "Those who love their life lose it, and
those who hate their life in this world will keep it for
eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and
where I am, there will my servant be also.
The decisions that a person
makes are like trial and error. Sometimes trusting the
Spirit, sometimes trusting the only life that we have
known. But as the Spirit teaches, nudges, guides, and
whispers, the new life slowly grows and the old one
dies. Our lives are daily filled with new challenges
that call us to respond. But like Paul we are caught
between what the Spirit teaches us and what our old
bodies seem only to be capable of. This is our life
force, the Spirit, that takes the words of Jesus and
gives them fresh new meaning and understanding for each
new circumstance.
Suppose there was a young woman
who had been active in Sunday School and youth group all
the way through high school, but had drifted away at
college. Now she's a young mother. The father of her
baby has gotten involved with drugs and alcohol and is
never home anymore and she's glad of it. She's tired of
covering up the bruises. The Holy Spirit is calling her
to a new life. It speaks of Jesus in contemporary
language. Can she hear it over the noise of the world?
What happens when a church
building is destroyed by vandalism? The energy and life
of the congregation has reached an all-time low, or has
it? What does the Spirit say in this new time? Is this
cause to give up and disburse to other congregations, or
is this the impulse it needed to revitalize and redirect
its ministry to something altogether new it had never
before thought of because it was tied to maintaining its
old life?
There are so many issues today
that the Bible does not specifically speak of and yet it
is for these that the Holy Spirit was given. To
transform our everyday lives into lives of service to
Christ. Sometimes the lives of which we dreamed and
worked so hard to achieve just don't materialize. Our
old selves would cry, but our new lives would recognize
potential.
John 3:16 tells us that God so
loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that
everyone who believes in him may not perish, but have
eternal life. Jesus draws all people to himself at the
moment of his death renewing and reconciling all who
come.