The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. Isaiah 35:1-2
Until this year I had never seen the desert blossom. In fact, I couldn’t even imagine it. How could a cactus bloom or a dusty bush blossom? Yet each day more plants, bushes, and even trees blossom than I could possibly imagine. Each day the colors are slightly different, progressively becoming more intense. This morning I noticed the yellow flowering on top of the palm trees in our complex. What next?
For many of us the passion readings we will hear on Palm Sunday may seem beyond our imagination. How could Jesus willingly lay down his life for his friends? How is it that God raised Jesus from death? We bump into these questions every Holy Week. We hear and meditate on the readings, yet the questions remain.
Today I taught some Pinnacle preschoolers the song “Jesus is a Friend of Mine.” As we learned the song I showed them the sign language for Jesus, which places a finger in the palm of the opposite hand, signifying the place where the nails were placed in Jesus’ hands. Some of them already knew the story that Jesus was crucified on a cross and that his hands were nailed to the cross. To my surprise, they asked why Jesus died, without any prompting from me. I marveled that they could form the question, and yet the answer is beyond all our imaginations. I responded that Jesus shows us that there is life beyond death. I knew that didn’t completely answer their question nor was it a complete answer.
When we find new beauty in the creation or approach a question we cannot completely answer I suggest that we may be bumping into the limits of our own understanding and finding God beyond those limits. That is the moment of the ‘leap of faith’ that Sǿren Kierkegaard describes. We trust that the full truth is beyond us, and we take the leap into trusting that God has more truth and beauty than any of us can individually conceive.
God can make the cactus bloom, and raise Jesus from the dead. What is beyond our imaginations can be clearly in God’s sight. Where will Jesus’ resurrection open to you this Easter?
