Signs of Life
"Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. 'Sir,' they said, 'we would like to see Jesus.'”
John 12:20-21
Dear Friends,
Today is the first day of spring in a winter season that has felt like Narnia—always winter, never Christmas. The bleak wilderness existence this past year has ushered in has stripped so much from most people. We were ill-prepared for this, weren’t we? What’s been lost, blanketed by winter snow or desert dust is physical connectedness, financial security, family disruptions, housing, routines, health. There’s been a real death of expectations and loved ones and marriages—more loss than most can bear.
I hold that with you and for you. I grieve with you and for you. My heart breaks with you and for you.
But pushing through dry desert dust or icy winter snow has been signs of life in places I thought were dead for sure. In hopeless, abandoned, and lonely places where death seems to have the final word, life forces through and interrupts my cycling mind.
In the fall, while the winds were just shifting from warm to cool, a friend was getting her garden ready for winter rest. Her Blue Bell bulbs had grown in great number so she dug out dozens to give away. Placing the bulbs in an empty plastic container, she handed them to me with instructions on when to plant and where to plant. Well, I promptly forgot to do either. These bulbs stayed naked and exposed in that plastic container on my front porch for months until two weeks ago when my eye caught the bright blue emerging from tangles of roots and stalks.
Those bulbs deserved a dark, soily tomb, buried at rest to explode into life but I had failed them. I was ill-prepared in their provision. There seemed to be no hope in my abandonment, and yet they were determined to keep living. Bursting through and interrupting the hopeless cycle of winter wilderness came forth Blue Bells that shouldn’t have survived. They allowed me to see differently and to long for a different perspective. That bright blue disrupted my eyes and reminded me that life can exist in the bleakest of times.
That passage from John’s gospel includes an invitation to see differently. “We would like to see Jesus,” those Greek folk asked Philip. Philip was a disciple Jesus called to see and follow Jesus. He probably felt ill-prepared in being a disciple, but that didn’t stop him from seeing signs of life all over the place. Philip doesn’t say much in the Bible, but what he does say has the deepest of meaning. He invited his friend Nathaniel to “come and see” Jesus—signs of life. He also met an Ethiopian man on a wilderness road. They saw water. They saw baptism—death and resurrection—signs of life. They saw God’s love and God’s affirmation of all people. They saw that there is life in what most thought was dead for sure. They saw Jesus.
“We would like to see Jesus."
Friends, spring is breaking forth in this winter wilderness and there is life to come in what we thought was dead for sure. It’s pushing through and breaking forth even in places ill-prepared. When we look, we can see Jesus—signs of life—all over the place. May we have eyes to see.
With (love),
Bethany