Yes, we of the planet Earth are in the grip of a frightening pandemic that is causing tremendous social and economic upheaval around the globe, and yes, more and more people are dying each day from a virus presently immune to vaccination.  On the other hand, believe it or not, today is the vernal equinox, the first day of Spring.  The days are lengthening, the sun is shining, and privations of winter are winding down.  Spring has come.  It must.
      We rejoice in the newness, we rejoice in the verdancy, we rejoice in the appearance of new life.  We rejoice in the power of the earth to, once again, rejuvenate and revive itself for our joy and wonder.  It's like a resurrection.

     

 The writer of Proverbs 27 observes that, "When the grass disappears, the new growth is seen."  Winter can be hard, winter can be harsh, and winter can be long, very long, rife with dissolution and vanishing, departure and hopelessness.  Even in the most tropical regions of the world, however, though spring, fall, and winter do not occur in the way they do in northern regions, "grass" nonetheless disappears.  Things die, things go away, things change.  And newness comes.  It's the rhythm of existence, the song of life.
     While we may not enjoy winter, personally, meteorologically, or otherwise, we walk in winters, small and large, every day, for in winters is the stuff of living, the glorious and aching mess of being alive, the raw material with which God fashions, in ways we rarely foresee, our springs.
     As the apostle Paul puts it in his first letter to the church at Corinth, the seed that falls to the ground cannot germinate unless it, now detached from its moorings, slips into the ground--no longer seen--and dies.  A seed's death is the winter that brings spring.
     Rejoice in the disappearance, rejoice in the newness.  Rejoice in a world that has both.
     And wash your hands . . .