We start the Lenten season with the beginning of the end: darkness, a seed, a life that seems to be over before it’s had a chance to begin. Ash Wednesday is a reminder that we are the sort of creatures who begin from the earth and return to it someday. There is the tomb before there is the rising.

There’s a beauty to the life of the Spirit that I think is written everywhere in the natural world (of which we are members!), and it is this: “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.” [John 12:24]

The thing that has always struck me about this verse is mostly that seeds, though they appear lifeless, are anything but. They are packages of life-potential, waiting for the right conditions to sprout! Every seed needs a few basic conditions before it begins the process of germination. Some seeds germinate after periods of cold stratification (cold cycles), others need intensive heat to sprout. It’s honestly kind of wild, the act of planting seeds: every year I do it, I’m a little suspicious. Will this actually work? More often than not, it does! I mean, look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDBX2gCXxYw

You can’t watch that process of germination and think of seeds the same way again. They’re definitely not dead…they’re just waiting for the right moment.

So the question on my mind this week, as we enter the Lenten season is this: What seeds that we’ve sown in our lives are sprouting right now? What has been down in the dark earth coming to life as we waited? What seeds are we still waiting to sprout? What are you planting in hope right this very minute?

May that Spirit of Life give us eyes to see the new shoots of growing things hoped for & faith to plant our longings into good soil.