If you have a senior in high school right now, you are acutely aware of the number of days left until graduation. This time honored ritual (and the behavior that goes with it) often starts with the beginning of senior year and continues with each passing day. The anticipation becomes almost unmanageable. The understandable reality is that these young folks, not unlike the rest of us, are just excited about something they have been long awaiting to come to fruition.
The well worn adage that a watched teapot never boils, is descriptive of how hard it is for us to wait for things we so genuinely are looking forward to. This happens particularly when that which we are longing for, in our perspective, is going to either improve or bring much joy to our life.
In almost every Minnesotan’s opinion, it has been a very long, hard winter. Some of us are still experiencing winter conditions. I actually heard a survey in mid-March that suggested 80% of life-long Minnesotans, when given the opportunity, would leave for a part of the winter. I thought that if in fact that was true, it was an understandable reaction to the collective weariness of the winter that has finally begun to wane, as hints of new life have begun to spring forth.
In many respects, as Easter people, those hints of new life are a part of our calling. We are the greening of the brown grass, the buds emerging on the trees, and the blooms bursting all around us.
The world is waiting, watching, wondering if new life will come. May our lives be a proclamation of that hope of new life, which is ours in the risen Christ.