Winter and Spring then Resurrection

    Except for allergy sufferers, I hear few complaints about springtime. But even they dislike the pollen, not the season.

     Trees and flowers explode with color, lawns roll out green carpets, and birds find their voice. It’s like all the creation announces, “We’re alive again!”

     This winter seemed unusually long, wet, and cold. Winter always seems long. For me, always too long. But it’s necessary. In the climate’s economy, winter snuffs out the old and makes way for the new.

     During winter, nature loses its sparkle. Luscious forests become shadowy stick figures. Annual flowers crawl back under the soil to hide from the shivering elements. Color vanishes, and it seems, so does all of life. Even nature’s melody goes silent as birds take their song to a warmer climate. Is it any wonder that some people suffer clinical depression during winter?

     Like nature, we too experience seasons in life. And without exception, everyone goes through personal winters that are cold, drab, and colorless.

     Most people lose their song during these days. In fact, the Bible speaks of a particular time when God’s people “hung their harps upon the branches of the willow trees” (Psalm 137:2). The cold hard problems of life silenced their songs and singing. Instead, they passed time reflecting upon the good ole days.

     Depression, financial stress, death of loved ones, sickness, marriage problems, divorce, addictions, and loneliness are but a few of the bleak conditions that make up personal winters. “The dead of winter” is more than a cliché; it’s an inescapable fact.

     I don’t like winter, but it’s necessary. No one can enter spring without first, passing through winter. It’s a spiritual principle God instilled in the universe.

     The cross reminds us that Jesus experienced a personal winter too, and it was ugly. Jesus death on the cross was even more repulsive. The only color that splashed across the backdrop of His crucifixion was red—His blood. Besides that, it was a dull, bleak, and dreary season. But it was necessary.

     One would hardly recognize Jesus during His winter season. Bruised, beaten, and bloody, He looked monstrous. Only the inward charm remained. Winter took its toll, and Jesus died. I’m not surprised. Winter was just doing what winters do.

     As the story goes, the season passed and springtime emerged. Like daffodils breaking out of a wintry prison, the earth wrung open and new life erupted from Christ’s wintry grave. Flowers bloomed (lilies, I suppose), eclipsed skies peeled back, and Robins chirped their own rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus. The mystery behind the resurrection message is, “Your winters are limited!” They come with an expiration date.

     It’s interesting that while we celebrate Christ’s birth in December, historians can’t pinpoint the exact time of His birth. They are sure, however, about the time of His resurrection. It’s springtime, right after Jewish Passover. Springtime and resurrection go together, as Forrest Gump said, like “peas and carrots.”

     I love springtime, don’t you? Every part of creation brims with resurrection, a principle God infused into the season itself.

     As I watch flowers bloom and listen to winged harmonies perched in the branches of blossoming dogwoods, I’m reminded that my winters, like Jesus’ cross, do not—they cannot—last forever. Jesus never interpreted His future by the dark winter of His cross. Neither should you.

     Springtime is here.

     Jesus has risen!

     And so can you.