On the nineteenth of this month, Spring officially began! Spring will run through June twentieth. Most of us look forward to springtime. The time has sped up, the brightness of the day seems to last longer, and of course the warm temperatures bring about more activities outside. We can also look at spring as a time of starting over, starting anew. One description of spring I found summed up this season up by saying, “Spring is all about new beginnings and transformations; it’s a season that symbolizes starting fresh and starting over. After months of cold temperatures that often result in many of us feeling the winter blues, spring reawakens us and our surrounding environment, bringing everything back to life.”
To me, this sound like Romans 6:1-11: What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
From this section of Scripture we learn: 1. God gives us grace, an opportunity to walk away from all the ugliness in our previous walk with the world. 2. We have an opportunity to make a choice, to accept this grace by being baptized in Christ, turning away from sin, and burying the old man (old way of life, old habits, old activities). 3. We walk in “newness of life.” We are starting over, our “spring time” you might say!
Spring time teaches us that we can plant new thoughts, new plans, and cling to the promise of hope because of our new awakening through Christ. We know spring time leads to fall, the harvest if you will.
With this understanding, we look forward to the harvest, when our time is over and we desire to find rest.
John 4:36 says: And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. Spring time offers so much hope, positivity, and thankfulness that our past is in the past!
I have heard it said we need to remember there’s a reason the windshield is larger than the review mirror. Our obedience to Christ and our desiring a relationship with Him offers a chance for us to leave our past in the past. Putting on Christ in baptism allows us not only newness in life, but rest forever- we won’t have to worry about the end when we are in eternity. Let us enjoy the next few weeks, it will get warmer.
The grass will become more green, spring will turn into summer, summer will turn into fall. Just like the seasons of the earth, our life has seasons- may we use this time to prepare for the harvest….Jesus not only gives us life, but frees us! Spring offers us hope, but Jesus offers a foundation to build everything on.
