Now the Green Blade Riseth

"When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain, thy touch can call us back to life again, fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green." (Hymnal 1982: #204)

Having been touched, something that was dead and bare springs to life again. Resurrection.

Wintry hearts - cold hearts, hardened hearts - are touched and quickened again. Resurrection.

We need resurrection in the world today. It's there, happening all the time, God making things new again. The lifeless coming back to life; hardened hearts softening, opening up to others. Resurrection is for now, not just for the end. But this is hard to see; our grieving is real and appropriate.

We grieve the things that are becoming bare. Today we grieve the loss of human life and the imminent loss of all kinds of wildlife, flora and fauna, in and around the waters and on the coast of Mississippi as the oil spill advances and washes ashore. We grieve the loss of vocation and income to those whose livelihoods depend on the fish and crustaceans there. And these things will not suddenly spring back to life again. It will take time, and effort, and money, and still more time. Things will not be the same on that part of this fragile earth, our island home. Our grieving is appropriate.

And yet we believe in resurrection. We know that the bare will spring green again, someday. We know that life rises out of death. We know that hearts will be softened somehow. We know that in the end, love will win. We know that all of us will go down to the dust, yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Love will win.