That New Life Smell

Take a big nose full of air today. A long breath into your nostrils. Notice anything? The air is still dead. It’s fresh and clear but it’s dead. The hard winter has kept the spring from coming to Western New York. The snow is still melting in our south parking lot. The only sure signs of spring have been the geese returning overhead and a few crocuses in their crazy purple and yellow. There is no life in the air.

But that is all about to change. An absolute revolution is about to happen. The earth is about to come to life. Green returns to the dormant grasses and covers the ground. Trees will bud, flowers of all kinds will gush forth everywhere. And filling the air will be this brand new smell (I’ve forgotten just how it smells – – – it’s been almost five months). Life.

Imagine if we had to pay our town government for Spring 2018. “Let’s see now; it’ll be $5 mill for the air conditioning, $19 mill for the flowers, and $27 mill for the grass, trees, and apple blossoms.” It’s all free!! God has designed it that way . . . so you could have a garden and greet your neighbor and just let your mind wonder at the beauty of it all. New life.

Is there a tree or bush anywhere that says “no” to this new life? “No. Leave me alone. It’s too hard here. Waking up again to all that happens . . . drought, wind storms, in- sects, losing leaves, winter, ice storms. . . I just don’t want anymore.” It’s hard coming to life again. It’s easier to stay dead sometimes.

Friends, the Easter Season we celebrate speaks of a new life beyond that of nature . . . what we call Eternal Life. It is a life that Mother Earth cannot produce and for which this springtime is only a glimmer. Eternal Life can come only from He who is eternal. And so God, like a good farmer, has sent His Son into nature. And like a seed, Jesus entered the earth to die (“Unless the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains just a grain of wheat”).

Having died and been buried in the earth, Jesus is raised from the dead by God who has the power to begin “a new heaven and a new earth.” Rev. 21:1.

Now the question remains, do you want this new springtime? Do you want to undertake the heartaches, disappointment or failure in this life (they are sure to come) for the sake of the prize. . .Life on high with Jesus Christ?

I do.

Fr. Tim