In my neighbour’s yard there are three milkweed plants that stand tall and stately against the snow and winds of a Georgian Bay winter. Months ago, most of the pods released their feathery seeds with the autumn wind scattering them about, but there are two pods which remain tightly closed.
These two-snow covered and wind battered pods have become a powerful symbol for me.
Most of us are arriving to this Lenten season a bit battered; COVID-19 having reigned large in our day-to-day living for nearly a year now. I feel we need a new and more contextual symbol for such a time as this and the milkweed pod is the perfect symbol!
Each snow-covered pod contains immeasurable and unimaginable potential; each packed full of God’s promises of new life, new beginnings and of a faith-filled optimism. These pods represent God’s hidden promises.
As the Apostle Paul writes, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1).
Lent is the journey of newness for all of us; it is a time when we rejoice that God is a God of promises. And these promises are not empty but full of the power that comes from the Christ who comes back to life in resurrection. During Lent, we can have confidence that Christ is bringing us with him into a new and wonderful beginning.
As the hymn, In The Bulb There Is a Flower, proclaims:
In the bulb that is a flower;
in the seed, an apple tree;
in cocoons, a hidden promise:
butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter
there’s a spring that waits to be,
unrevealed until its season,
something God alone can see. (Natalie Sleeth)
Rev. Heather McCarrel
Port Elgin United Church
