Hope from dark feathers
Back when my family and I lived in the southern Manitoba countryside, we'd know that winter was coming to an end when the crows could be heard outside. They'd return to their favourite old hydro pole every spring to repeat their timeless caw caw caws. And, sure enough, we could walk outside and spot them right away, with their dark feathers standing out against the receding banks of snow.
What irony, it seems, that a murder of crows should announce spring's arrival. But the Christian calendar reminds us that death and new life are tightly intertwined. Spring is also the season of Lent: a time that recalls the leanness and trials in the wilderness experience of both the Israelites and Christ. And Lent leads up to Easter, that time of new life that also required a death.
Some areas of our lives might seem like they are locked in the dead of winter: our finances, our health, our marriages, and even our faith. But let us remember the great Easter theme, that when things look the most bleak to human eyes, God will surprise.
Of course, finding hope in the midst of death doesn't come naturally to us. The earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end with the passage, "Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid" (16:8, NIV).
There is plenty of news these days, too, which sounds bleak. There are stories of government corruption, natural disasters, and world hunger. But there is still reason for hope. In this issue of ChristianWeek, Frank Stirk looks at how churches are helping to end homelessness in Calgary, and Geoffrey P. Johnston examines ways that organizations are meeting the food security crisis in West Africa.
Though it may seem like a paradox, God calls us to expect these surprises. He is the director where every movie finishes with a twist, the party planner that begins every birthday with a blindfold. But we can only come to understand this by learning to look at the world in a different way.
This is the eyesight of Easter, summed up in Thomas Froese's upcoming Out of Africa column (written, incidentally, while sitting in a cemetery near the ocean): "God's love also radiates through people who don't look so good, ragged people who are cracked and broken," he writes. "In fact, it's often that brokenness that lets God's grace shine through them."
At ChristianWeek, we aim to provide news and commentary that gives reason for this hopeful perspective, that shows ways in which people "interact with the beauty and brokenness of our world."
We, too, hold on to the hope that we will be able to keep offering this perspective for years to come, despite the financial uncertainty that faces newspaper publishers today. For this reason, we continue to thank you for the support you have given to us over the years, and remind you that it is still very much needed in this, the season of leanness.
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