A Beach Picture, Snow and Ice, and Resurrection: "While it Was Still Dark"

When I finally became a citizen of facebook nation, someone asked me why in the world I posted a beach picture--topless, no less, someone else pointed out--on my fb wall on a day when the part of South Carolina where I live was getting eight inches of snow. It's like this.

When Bev and I lived in Princeton, autumn was my favorite season of the year. By the end of August, the nights were turning cool enough to need a sweater, and the chill of September and October screamed, "Football!" "Hot chocolate!" and "Let's jump in the leaves!" Thanksgiving was a celebration of plenty in the face of impending winter, and December's snows made Christmas lights brighter by far than they are at home in the American South.

But by the middle of January, the snow was piled by the curb and the sidewalks, crusted and yellowed and blackened. The dingy gray carpet on the field where we walked our dogs was now cold and oppressive, covering as it did the green, green grass of our home-away-from-home until March.

Do you remember the line, "April showers bring May flowers"? That was obviously written by a northern poet, not a southerner. Down home, we have crocus in February, daffodils in March, and azaleas in full bloom by April. Living in the northeast, January was the month of the beginning of a months-long longing for spring that came far too slowly.

January was also the month when the cruise lines saturated the airwaves with advertisements. The television constantly showed sun, sand, sea, bathing suits, beach balls, beach umbrellas, carefree people cavorting and carousing all day long and deep into the tropical night, while we huddled inside in our little apartment and outside in our coats and mittens and toboggans (those are "knit hats" to everyone outside the South, "tooks" to Canadians). "The beach! The beach!" we yearned (that's "The shore!" for you Jerseyites). "Ah, for summer!" we cried. Winter was cruel enough; the cruise lines made it crueler still.

Hence a beach picture on my fb wall in the middle of January in the throes of snow and ice.

The biblical Song of Songs reflects the yearning for winter to pass in its celebration of the arrival of spring:
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away;
for now the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines are in blossom;
they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
(Song of Solomon 2:10-13)
Could I sign you up for a cruise in the southern Caribbean about now? How about a beach in Belize or Costa Rica or Panama? "Arise, my love, and come away!"

In the Christian faith, the passing of winter and the arrival of spring has long been associated with resurrection. There are both historical and theological reasons for this association. But there is a reason of the Spirit also.

Resurrection is a spiritual light at the end of the tunnel. Resurrection is the Spirit's whisper in our soul in the literal and figurative coldest days and darkest nights of our lives. When what was once as fresh and clean and lovely and enchanting as the windblown snow has become crusty and yellowed and blackened and the enchantment is gone, resurrection is a ray of hope in the light in which we are always held but cannot always see because of the darkness around us and within us. "While it was still dark," the Easter story begins (John 20:1). Resurrection.

Sometimes a beach picture is just a beach picture. But sometimes a beach picture is a whisper of the Spirit to our soul, a proclamation of resurrection.

This material is Copyrighted © 2011 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeff.rogers@firstbaptistgreenville.com.