Lately, I’ve had my doubts about “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting”; before the “amen” it’s time to revisit just what I do believe about this article of faith I’ve affirmed since—well, forever it seems.
Over the years, people close to me have asked me to help them comprehend this incomprehensible Easter surprise. And while I’ve laboured faithfully to lay out St. Paul’s triumphant acclamation in 1 Corinthians 15, I too now struggle for clarity.
Last Easter Sunday we gathered for worship in a beautiful sanctuary, nearly packed with an all-ages community of the faithful. The music was classical and uplifting and I felt especially keen to hear the gospel proclamation of Easter once more.
What I found myself connecting with was the children’s message.
The minister gathered the children at the front and began talking to them about transformation in nature. “From a bulb emerges a beautiful tulip,” she began. “From a caterpillar’s cocoon emerges a beautiful butterfly. From a tiny tadpole emerges a large green frog! God makes it happen. It’s mysterious and wonderful.”
“I like that,” I thought. For an illustration, the minister had brought a pot of flowering tulips which she had planted and nurtured.
Then she held out to the children a tulip bulb and remarked that the bulb itself wasn’t really much to look at. It resembled an onion, looked sort of dead and had rather unattractive, scraggly roots. Her segue was going to be a move to the transformation that would take place after the bulb was planted in soil, when suddenly a hand shot up. A young girl was signaling that she had something to say.
Reluctantly, the minster held out the wireless microphone to the girl and wondered out loud whether she should ask this youngster or not. Apparently, the girl was known for her opinions! Muted, nervous laughter trembled through the pews.
“All bulbs have roots!” exclaimed the girl.
“Yes, and thank you for that,” the minister replied, perhaps thanking God under her breath that nothing too weird was offered by this precocious starlet. And the minister went on to her illustration about transformation.
“Wait a minute,” I mused. “What was that again?” “All bulbs have roots.” Suddenly the words to me were like breaking news.
“Yes, they do!” I thought. “Yes, they do,” I affirmed. All bulbs have roots! Hallelujah!
To be sure, none of us looks his or her best at death. In spite of the cosmetics and the absurd comments often made at ‘viewings,’ you or I will never make the cover of Vogue when we die. And yet, as unlovely as we may appear at death, the truth is that we are nonetheless rooted in “the steadfast love of God which endures forever,” as the Easter psalm of the day so eloquently puts it. (Psalm 118:1)
The kid is right, isn’t she? “All bulbs have roots!”
It changes the way we look at death and opens the possibility of deepened faith.
We would not have recognized our dying relative last summer if we had not been told that this was her room and that was indeed her bed. When we sat beside her and held her hand and talked a bit, there was no doubt. A woman of faith rooted in the gospel of her Lord, though now a shadow of her once robust self, she gave us a thumbs up when humourously we asked if she was ready for a “Presbyterian” prayer. She died two days later.
Remember the photo of the first body to be recovered from the 9/11 tragedy? It was the chaplain who had run into the building with the first responders, only to die in the attempt and here he was—carried by the sturdy firefighters who had scooped him up and brought him out. Later, observers would say the scene was reminiscent of a modern Pieta, like Christ taken down from the cross and resting in his mother’s arms. Here too was a bulb with roots!
What looks like human dissolution, by the grace of God in Jesus Christ risen from the dead, is more like a bulb with roots deep in that grace, a bulb full of the Almighty’s promise—and more, the Lord be praised, it is the preview of a new body, the likes of which we can barely imagine.
“All bulbs have roots!” It’s Easter’s breaking news.
Hymns of the day might include:
#674 In the Bulb There is a Flower
#256 Now the Green Blade Rises from the Book of Praise
About Jim McKay
Rev. Jim McKay is a retired Presbyterian minister living in scenic Saskatoon.