Written by: Madison Wilcox
Spring has come, and I am astonished. I wish I could spend a full day staring at the world with my mouth open, saying to every leafing tree, “You too?” Spring has come. We are waking from the bad dream that was winter; we are flung into the bright reality of green, glowing, growing things.
How could we have doubted? Has there ever been a year without spring? Has there ever been a spring without the exclamation point of astonishment appearing, time and time again, across the landscape of life? Spring comes. And with it, a promise: life defeats death, always.
Such was the message of one spring day over two thousand years ago. With spring came the empty tomb — a sudden revelation of the brilliance of God, as astonishing as the dogwoods and the leafing oaks after long bitterness. Christ rose, certain as the crocuses rise from the frosty ground. And His rising granted the promise of spring to us, as well: surely death wakes up to life, surely brown turns to green before long. Soon, death and all things breaking and broken will be gone forever.
This is difficult to believe at the start of winter, when spring is still months away. Often, within the tomb of surrender, we grope in the dark for a life we think may never return to us. Three months of long nights and we turn against the One who led us to this place. Were we led this far only to watch Him roll the stone across our final hope? Who hears us cry for light from within these walls, thick with insistence?
Yet spring proclaims a truth we must hear: those who follow Christ into the tomb will surely follow Him out. How could it be any different? In God’s world, the tomb empties as surely as the dogwood blooms. Those who enter rise up, as surely as the spring rises to spite the frost. What dies, broken, will live again, whole.
Tell me, would God ever let a heart break that He could not heal completely? Would He ever lead us into a darkness He did not plan to shatter with the brightness of His rising? Spring reminds us, astonishes us again, with Christ’s promise, ever true: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live” (John 11:25). “For behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.” (Song of Solomon 2:11-12)
