Our Generous Lord - Wild Garlic and the Life of the Church
The Rectory garden has come to life over the last month - with copious amounts of wild garlic springing up more quickly than I can kill it off with weed killer. There is something wonderfully Paschal about my unsuccessful endeavours to contain the plant life in my garden. Just as the greenery that springs up around me neither relies on me in order to grow, nor can be stopped by me, so it is with the Life of Easter that flows from Christ to his church.
The life of the Lord Jesus, which is made real within us by the presence of his Spirit, doesn't come from our hard work - and neither can it be stopped by our shortcomings and failures.
That the Lord gives life to his people, and that he grows his Church is, in a sense, inevitable. It is unstoppable. We rejoice that just as we cannot make it happen ourselves, the Lord entrusts to each one of us a part to play as he himself calls the world into new life.
The life doesn't, of course, come from no-where. Very strangely, Jesus tells us it comes from his death. To stick with the gardening metaphor, our Lord said "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (John 12:24) Holy Week reminds us of Jesus' own 'falling into the earth' - and Easter Day marks the beginning of the first fruits. Jesus first, then the apostles, now us. Jesus gives up his own mortal life, in order that we might share in his eternal life.
Or as the Apostle Paul put it: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." 2 Cor 8:9
This is an exchange of sorts - where Jesus takes our poverty to the cross; and in exchange seats our humanity in heavenly places.
The Lord Jesus is generous with us. The generosity of Jesus is not primarily about our material needs, although God certainly does provide for us as he does the lilies and the sparrows.
Jesus' generosity is about giving us much more than we could image.
This week, let me encourage you: be moved by Christ's generosity. Come to church each day, and hear the story of his suffering, and of his love. Discover again, if not for the first time, the power of his resurrection. Follow him to the cross where he spends himself for us - and through the cross to the empty tomb from whence all our life now springs.
