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I read some years ago that the four seasons are a mirror of a person’s lifespan: Spring is infancy, summer youth, fall adulthood, and winter our death. It’s a trim and tidy summary.
I found an even shorter visual summary when I walked out of my front door and saw a clump of tiny daffodils peeking out from a blanket of snow. Spring, meet winter. Birth, meet death. Who needs the middle men?
That’s a fairly somber notion for daffodils. But it is exactly the tone of this poem by Robert Herrick, a 17th-century English poet.
Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.
Though it may speak truth, doesn’t it seem inappropriate for a spring poem or an Easter meditation? It’s like inviting the Grim Reaper to your birthday party. Dude, what’s with the sickle?
We feel like that because Christ’s resurrection has changed our story. It has given a new starting point in the cycle of the seasons. Winter doesn’t end our story. It’s now the conflict that is overcome at the climax of the narrative. The story shifts over one season.
Because Jesus overcame the grave, he is exactly who he said he was. His resurrection proves his words to be true. So when he says this world is a prelude to another, we can believe him. Death isn’t winter’s night. It’s only the darkness before the dawn of spring.
“Think of yourself just as a seed patiently waiting in the earth: waiting to come up a flower in the Gardener’s good time, up into the real world, the real waking.” C. S. Lewis
Jesus, ever-living, ever-present, remind us through the flowers of spring the message that your resurrection shouts: it is true! Heaven awaits! A kingdom is coming! Death is not the end! Awaken our hearts with this joy. Transform us, even today, by this truth.