Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 12 verse 24:
“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
T.S. Eliot said, “April is the cruelest month.”
Surely, by the losses marked we believe so.
On April 4th we observed the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 9th we observed the execution date of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Yesterday morning we reflected on the death of President Lincoln and then yesterday afternoon there was the horrific fire in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Then Friday we shall publicly mourn the death of Jesus.
Death is in the air.
And yet the ultimate meaning of each of the lives of these martyrs lost is the powerful legacy they left upon this earth, the ways in which their lives in the singular burial of death have sprung up again in an array of life — like lilacs in the Spring. One seed died; but from it’s death was born a whole new world.
Our hearts are so heavy now for what has happened to Notre Dame. It is more than the loss of a church building, or even a cultural and religious icon. It is the loss of a public sacrament, an outward and invisible sign of the invisible human spirit.
And yet, even with this terrible tragedy, there is some hint of resurrection, of life and meaning beyond the grave. This is true of President Macron’s pledge to rebuild Notre Dame. But perhaps it is also true in thousands of other places outside of Paris and people outside the French. People the world over are grieving and in their grief we see the psychic and religious power of the Temple alive yet again even in this purportedly post-religious age.
A spire has fallen to the earth this cruel April. But in its singular fall others round the world rise and even call out:
“Come, ye who are weary and find rest beneath our shadow; and raise your weary heads unto the heavens.”
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