Theology of the Turning Seasons

Each season has the potential to be either a joy or an inconvenience.

Snow, for instance, is beautiful. Kids are especially excited to see the snow falling, and are disappointed when it doesn't stick. Snow brings joy to families all over the world. Snow reminds us of Christmas. For many people snow is a nostalgic joy. Yet at the same time snow obstructs our labor. When the winter approaches, my hard-working brother always comments, "How can anyone like snow? It ruins everything!" And he's right. Snow is, in reality, a cause for car wrecks and a roadblock to good, hard-working citizens.

Then springtime comes. The melting ice is an apt picture of redemption. The sun rises and declares the faithfulness of God. But at the same time the sun brings a parched land, and rain is an image of the providence of God. His grace is like rain. "He turns the desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water" (Psalm 107:35).

But Portlanders are quite aware of the misery of rain. Rain is simultaneously an image of the providence of God and an image of misery. Everyone knows the cliché line, "At least it can't get any worse..." which is followed by thunder and rain.

Each season has the potential to be a joy and an inconvenience.

How quickly snow changes from a picture of the grace that covers our sins to a mess of inconvenient ice and slush.

There is something interestingly parallel between the search for the coming seed in the Hebrew Bible and the turning of the seasons. Take Noah, for instance. The reader is refreshed to arrive at Lamech, who lives 777 years, whose son Noah will "bring us relief out of the ground that Yahweh has cursed"(Genesis 5:29). But, like any given season, the story ends disappointingly with a mess of ice and slush, a drought, a miserable drizzle of rain, i.e. Noah gets drunk. He was not the coming seed after all.

Yet the story quickly comes to Abram, a new season. And the Hebrew Bible continues this search, this turn of seasons, as prophet after prophet, judge after judge, king after king are each a hopeful light of salvation, but each story ends disappointingly like Noah.

But the beauty of stories like Noah and seasons like spring is that they are a proclamation of the redemption of Messiah; they are by no means the Messiah themselves. And there is a bittersweetness in the life of Noah and the end of a good season; the bitterness is that they are not God, they are not Christ, but it is precisely this bitterness that provides the sweetness. They have done their work, they have proclaimed Christ, and have assured us that they themselves are not salvation, just as John the Baptist was obliged to say, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" when the people thought that he might be the Messiah.

Not only is the Old Testament entirely Messianic, in fact, the entire universe is Messianic. The four seasons are prime examples, main stage performers in the drama of this universe, which proclaims the salvation of Christ. But they are not exceptions. "All things were created through him and for him" (Colossians 1:16).

"All things" does indeed include everything.

Enjoy the snow that reminds us that he has covered our sins, enjoy good food that reminds of the sustaining grace of his Word, and enjoy honey that reminds us of the sweetness of Jesus. These are not God; Jesus is.