Dear friends,
It’s wonderful to witness the world waking up once again and especially after such a long, cold and persistent winter. There are so many things we have come to know and love about this time of year, and that tell us in no uncertain terms that winter has passed and spring has sprung. Birds are singing. Trees are budding. Rivers are flowing. Flowers are blooming. Neighbours are emerging, and warm breezes full of scent and sunshine, coax us into pleasant contemplations. If you listen closely, you can hear the hum of life starting to course through the earth, and even through ourselves as well.
However, I have other remembrances of spring that are not so fond, one of which involved my mother serving us what she called a ‘spring tonic’. It was basically boiled rhubarb and sugar. Sometimes she would serve it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, so it would be more palatable to us as children, but ice cream or not, we had to eat it. She said it had “all the strength of spring in it”, and that its positive and nutritious properties would last us all the way until the following spring.
Now I’m not really sure about the medicinal properties of rhubarb, but I do believe that the most powerful spring tonic of them all is to be found in the event of Easter. It not only has all of the strength of spring in it, it has all of the power of the Resurrection. And for those who believe, it contains a blessing that far exceeds next spring. It is a blessing that lasts forever, for it is the miracle of God’s love in Jesus Christ.
I had no choice as a child but to take my spring tonic, but God makes no such requirement of us, for God’s grace and goodness are offered to us freely, and can only be received freely. Easter can only move from the outside of the world, to the inside of our hearts and minds through our permission. Yet when we do so, we come to recognize that the singing of birds and the blooming of flowers and the flowing of rivers, and even you and I, as we pause to appreciate a warm spring breeze, are all ways that nature is praising God, from whom all blessings flow. And as much as I may not want to admit it, that includes rhubarb too.
Blessings, Reverend Lewis
