Spring

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3).

Winter is an exhausting time of the year. There is snow that needs to be shoveled. There are windshields that must be scraped. You have to walk carefully lest you slip on the ice and take a hard fall. Bitterly cold winds make you bundle up before going outside for any length of time. The long nights and barren fields can take a toll on your outlook.

Winter makes us appreciate the spring. We look forward to having more hours of sunshine each day. We are excited when trees start to bud, and green shoots poke out of the ground. We can hardly wait to put away our winter coats and go outside wearing nothing heavier than a jacket.

Sadly, we spend much of our lives feeling as if it’s winter, without the hope of an early spring. We all have times when nothing is going right. People we thought were friends are too preoccupied to spend time with us. Work gets boring, or the boss makes each day a trial to get through. A sports team can go through a long string of back-to-back losses. We can fall victim to chronic health problems, or have to deal with a constant stream of bills because things keep breaking down or need replacement.

When troubles come at us one after another, it can get depressing. Novelist John Steinbeck named such times “the winter of our discontent.” When life gets frustrating and there seems to be no hope for relief, it can feel like we’re trapped in the dead of winter.

Thankfully, spring is coming. The winter of our discontent will come to an end. Jesus rose from the grave that our sins put Him in, to bring us the promise of new life, exciting life, joyous life that will never end. No matter how sad or aggravating or hopeless things might look now, the Son of God assures us that decay and death will be supplanted with vigorous, joyful life. Winters come and winters go; but every winter gives way to spring. Our troubles are sometimes worse, sometimes not so bad—but they will not truly end until death finally claims us. Thankfully, death doesn’t have to be a tragedy—when you are a friend of Christ, the end of life is the end of your winter and the beginning of an eternal spring in paradise.