Well, it finally happened. It got cold enough last night (below 30) to kill the zinnias. Janice plants them, takes care of them, and picks them to brighten up our home and to give to others. I take pictures of their visitors (bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds). But now they’re gone. They went from vibrant and beautiful to dead and looking like it overnight. But that’s the way things go in this life, isn’t it?
Isaiah’s post-exilic message to Israel begins with the recognition that:
All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever. (Isaiah 40:6-8)
Peter, writing to scattered Jewish disciples several centuries later quotes this text. The disciples are away from their homeland, suffering “grief in all kinds of trials” (v. 6) and generally being bounced around by life. Peter wants them to know that while that’s kind of the way life can be at times, but they have something eternal in the middle of their transitory earthly journey. They have been “born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God” (v. 23). This is the word of the Lord that endures forever (v. 25).
There you go. Everything comes into this world with an expiration date. Everything, that is, but the word of God. It “endures forever.” That’s good news because we need something bigger than we are to hold on to and anchor us while we circle the sun.
And you recognize that the word is more than the word. That is, Peter’s not referring to some scratches on a scroll, he’s speaking of the good news of what God has accomplished through Jesus (v. 18-21) which is communicated through the word. That message, and the deeds they tell us about, are not transient. They’re eternal. You can build your life around them and when your season comes, you can die with them—because death leads us into the Lord’s presence and one day—to the transformation of our bodies to become like His (Philippians 3:20-21; 1 John 3:2).
God is making all things new. He started with Jesus and our day is coming! That’s something to think about as the seasons come and go and we circle the Son.
A Taste of Grace with Bruce Green 