Spring around the Corner

Good morning! It might brighten your day today to consider the fact that our winter darkness has a definite use-by date. As January begins to wane, it is good to remind ourselves that we can surface again from the depths of winter, and that Spring is really just around the corner. In numerical terms, since the winter solstice last month, we have gained around three quarters of an hour, depending on where you are, and things can only get brighter from here.

Emerging from winter darkness is a powerful metaphor - personally and spiritually. In CS Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, one of the signs that Aslan has returned is the thaw that sets in to the always-winter-never-Christmas world of Narnia, a gradual and irresistible movement away from the claustrophobia and obscurity of oppression. In our personal lives, there are dark eras that we have to winter through, and even the tiniest glimmer of light can stir hope in our souls. For the Apostle Paul, the imagery of darkness and light functioned as a key way to describe the change that the gospel of Christ brings, transforming those who trust in him, with the promise that cosmos itself will one day emerge from the darkness and confusion it currently endures into the liberty, light and life of a new heavens and a new earth.

Creator God, thank you for the steady roll of the seasons, for the picture book that our world provides of the patterns of darkness and light, of death and resurrection, of suffering and glory, loss and recovery. Thank you that we are already marking the movement of winter into Spring. Strengthen us if this season of the year is a struggle, and help us to see our ultimate hope of gospel transformation reflected in the natural world. In Jesus’ name. Amen.