A Sign of Joy in the Darkness

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We Christians are called to be like a mustard seed sinking into the darkness of the humus from which we come, mixing with it, allowing our protective layers to disintegrate so that the God-given life within becomes one with the earth, and, finally, leaping skyward, our brilliant blossoms and fragrance a means of grace in our little part of the vineyard.

The metaphor of the mustard seed is apt; the descent into the darkness of the soil to which we are called is like the journey of our Lord we remember during Holy Week. Jesus so desired to be at one with all who experience darkness that he shared our too frequent sense of being abandoned by God and neighbor.  On the Cross, he was forsaken, abandoned, betrayed, denied, and rejected. And only after his Passion and Resurrection did we follow.

What a wonderful thing it is to be called into this divine action of living and dying with Christ so that we are raised with him, a new creation. From the dark soil leaps the lily, a gleaming light of promise, an expression of God's perfect love for us. This is the joy of Easter, and it pervades all things. Yet we receive this joy not for ourselves alone, but so that we might share it. But in order to share it, we must descend like Christ into the darkness, mixing with it and thereby transforming it. And that means that the Christian necessarily will be led by the Spirit into situations in which one finds oneself forsaken, abandoned, betrayed, denied, and rejected as one enters into the darkness of our neighbors in order to share the Easter joy.

Most of us, therefore, will experience periods of darkness and long stretches of desert in the life of faith.  When we experience these, we do well to remember that our suffering in Christ is the grace between two joys - that of Easter and that which is to come in the fulfillment of time.  Our purpose is to embody the joy.  Yet we live between the Alpha and the Omega.  In the desert, where the beauty and fragrance of the lily fades into memory, what matters is that we take the risk of trusting the love of God. 

May you blossom in place this Eastertide.