Last weekend on Good Friday while riding my bike through Springbank Park here in London, I noticed that the beech trees are still holding on to their leaves. The beech tree—the American beech, to be precise—is one of my favorite trees because of the smooth beauty of its silver-grey bark and the distinctive yellow-green shade it casts in summer when sunlight passes through its paper-thin leaves. I especially appreciate the audacity of the beech in hanging on to its dead leaves through the winter, creating an occasional splash of colour in our otherwise dull grey and brown deciduous forests.
Botanists call this trait of retaining dead plant matter—which beeches share with oaks— “marcescence”. Various theories have been put forward as to the ecological advantage marcescence offers to these species, one being that “retaining leaves until spring could be a means of slowing the decomposition of the leaves (they would rot faster if on the ground) and that dropping them in spring delivers organic material (think compost or mulch) at a time when it is most needed by the growing parent tree.” Given that I felt like Creator was speaking to me through the beech tree on Easter weekend, the idea of dead leaves contributing to new life seems harmonious with the ordering of the universe.
Easter teaches us to never assume we know how the story ends.
At the Great Easter Vigil Judy and I attended on Saturday night, the preacher declared “Life does not end in death; death ends in life.” Christians believe that because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, death no longer has the final word. Because a man who breathed his last on a Roman torture pole was able to exit his tomb three days later, what once seemed impossible now becomes possible. Easter teaches us to never assume we know how the story ends: if Christ is risen, we must look at the world and what we consider to be immutable realities with a different set of eyes. Everything changes: Life can emerge from death; love can overcome evil; hope can supplant despair; courage can chase away fear; light can dispel darkness. Anything is possible, tenuous and uncertain though our existence continues to be at times.
One of those Easter moments where everything changed was at the time of the birth of our oldest son. Three months before his birth, my wife’s father Wytze (aka Ted) passed away after an excruciating, ten-month battle with lung cancer. Chemotherapy, radiation therapy, experimental therapies and the best medical care available in Ontario at the time couldn’t keep him alive. He was only 47 when he died. His wife Reina and six children, the youngest only 10, were distraught, bewildered and confused. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. They—we—had prayed and believed that God would intervene and save his life. Our prayers were not answered (and to this day we do not understand why) but three months later we welcomed a strong, healthy 9 pound 10 ounce baby boy to the household. We named him Aaron Wytze—Aaron means light-bringer, Wytze for his grandfather. He helped dispel the darkness and brought joy to broken hearts. Death did not have the final word.
The news that Mary Magdalene and the other women brought to the (male) disciples on Easter morning, the news that the tomb where Jesus had been buried was empty, seemed so far-fetched that the men didn’t believe a word of it, thought the women were making it all up. Despair blinds us to the possibility of events taking an unforeseen turn for the better. We like to imagine that we can control our destiny, and when we see the future slipping from our grasp we easily succumb to the darkness that hovers in our peripheral vision. But, the power that raised Christ from the dead is a power that transcends the normal order of things, replaces ruined dreams with hope, and allows us to experience joy within and beyond suffering. The disciples’ were so transformed by their encounters with the risen Christ in the days following Easter that the locals couldn’t figure out what was going on.
“The more the insight that life is surprising takes hold of us, the more our life will be a life of hope, a life of openness for Surprise.”
Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast describes hope as “openness for surprise”. “The more the insight that life is surprising takes hold of us, the more our life will be a life of hope, a life of openness for Surprise. And Surprise is a name of God” (Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer, p. 123). As Pope Francis declared on Easter Sunday, the resurrection of Christ is the ultimate proof that God is a God of surprises. Easter is a jolt to our system, a rude awakening, a reminder that death is meant to be subordinate to life, disappointment is meant to be subordinate to hope. We seldom understand when and how, but we wait in hope and expect the eternal to overrule the temporal.
It’s been a long winter and a late spring here in Southwestern Ontario, but one day soon (I hope) green buds and fresh shoots will displace last year’s dead leaves on the beech trees, and those dead leaves will fall to the ground to become compost to promote new growth.
