The Best Season Ever!

Rev. 21:1-7

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

Spring has officially become my new favorite season. It wasn’t always this way. I used to appreciate fall the most. Fall meant getting back to school. Fall meant friends huddled close around backyard fires. Fall meant football, hunting, time with my father in the duck blind. Fall was the most meaningful and most anticipated season of all for me.

But now fall has been supplanted in my estimation. Oh, I still like it, but spring is now where it’s at for me. I’ve grown to appreciate the tulips and the Daffodils as they give us the first splash of outdoor color in 6 months. I’ve grown to appreciate the trees and the shrubs as they put out their supple, delicate, and slightly waxy new leaves. And who could argue with the breeze perfumed with apple and lilac blossoms? I’ve grow to appreciate the ever increasing light as the upper half of our globe lines up more directly to the sun. To me, spring is the best season of all

I know, I put myself at risk in thinking like this. Spring is the season of dusty old poets and song writers. Spring is the season of a a thousand grandmas. Oh yeah, all of my grandmas went on about the flowers and the trees and the leaves and the fragrances of spring. In the spring they’d walk about their yards in their house dresses and clip on earrings rhapsodizing over the joy of it all.

I didn’t get it at that time. It wasn’t at all special to me. I was kind of like Bill Murray in Caddy shack when it came to flowers. Who cares about the flowers? I do now. You see, I’ve changed; drastically changed. What can explain it? Well, for one thing my grandmas have all gone now. My last one died last summer. They have gone the way of all flesh, they have met their end. Others who I am close to have also died. Most recently the pastor who also is responsible for me becoming a pastor is now also gone. And so I grow weary of it. I weary of death and the sadness that comes with it. I weary of the whole idea that people get old. I weary of the idea that I too am getting older.

I know now what my grandmas saw in spring. They saw life, they saw new life that could not be stopped or contained; new life, vigorous, vibrant, and fresh. In spring, they saw something hopeful which I too now see. I see the hostas eagerly poking their furled leaves through the soil, in greater number than the year before. I see asparagus busting through and growing 6 inches in one day! I hear big-eyed big-mouthed baby birds chirping for their mama from the nest. God did this! God designed this wonderful season where we see the return of life. This is what we want! This is what we need!

And this, this is what has been promised! Jesus, Revelation 21:5, “I am making everything new” Did you hear that? “I am making everything new!” He shall say this on the last day. On the day of our resurrection, on the day that he says to you and me and all who believed on his name “come, you who are blessed by my father.” (Matt 25:34) The eternity he has promised us will be like spring on a massive scale. Now If you’re like me and you have at last begun to understand the significance of spring, then you are prepared to understand, at least in part, what you are going to feel like on the day of resurrection.