How many times, I wonder, when on our holidays or out for walks in the country, do we stop and look at the alluring site of the babbling brook. Running water, stones, riverbank plants and trees and the buzzing of insects. Tranquil and lovely.
Many years ago, a little willow sapling began its journey to fully fledged tree beside the river Ore just along the road from our house in Framlingham. For years locals have noticed as it has grown a bit and moved a bit, gradually taking up more of the space really meant for the water to run in. Suddenly this innocuous little sapling has become the villain of the piece; Look East recently spotlighted it as a typical example of one of the causes of, yes you guessed, our flooding.
That tree is not much different from the picture I could have taken five years ago but now it is seen as a liability. I expect its days are numbered.
Many of us love a baby! We look, take photographs, cuddle, and coo but in the early days of life, we have little idea what the bundle of potential will turn into. A future genius, or villain of the piece…fortunately, most of us emerge to be somewhere on the continuum between the extremes of hope or horror.
The journey through the Christian year, beginning in Advent, sees those extremes. The baby that attracts so many at Christmas grew up into the man seen by the establishment as the villain of the piece. A problem to be cut down. Willow trees are fast growing but nothing matches the speed with which the villain was transformed again, this time to Saviour. We can join the journey anywhere, and people do that, but full understanding only comes from being there for the entire cycle of life, death, and resurrection.
A Prayer
God of life, death, and resurrection, as we contemplate birth, beginnings and growing up, help us not to be cynical about outcomes but to remember that hope refreshes with every fresh start. We thank you for every step of our journey of faith, from infant to immortal, with Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.