Glen Avon Presbyterian Church

“Watch and Know …”

Rev. Robyn Weaver

For three deadly weeks the Black Saturday fires of February 2009 raged through the Australian forests. Some 173 lives were lost, 2093 homes burned, and 1 million acres of woodland destroyed.

A number of factors came together to cause the destruction. Years of drought, extreme temperatures, high winds, and arson shaped the factors that formed a “perfect storm” of fire and devastation. Last week the man believed to be the arsonist was found guilty of being a key factor in the reign of fire.

In the midst of the recovery about five weeks after the fires an amazing miracle occurred. Rain fell and the forest began to sprout forth epicormic blooms. The eucalyptus trees were the first to show shoots from what appeared to be charred and dead trunks. The epicormic buds lay dormant within the tree trunks and were activated by the extreme stress of the aftermath of the fire. What appeared to be dead and destroyed in fact had within its core the promise of rebirth. The forest was green again.

Holy Week marks for the Christian Church a call to reflect on Jesus entry into Jerusalem and the storm of events that took him from a Triumphant Hosanna to betrayal and death before the Roman and religious authority of his day. It’s an amazing week full of intrigue and drama, prayer and surrender. One can easily go from Palm Sunday to Easter without an account of the days that stand in between.

Yet, it is the between days that speak about the deep abiding love of God for the entire cosmos. Love so great as to go through the fire and extreme anger, the winds of betrayal and the devastation of the cross that we might know of forgiveness and hope for our fire ridden lives. We miss something of the power and the love when we gloss over the deep tale of the week between the Palms and the Cross.

Death did not have the victory. “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and three days after being killed, he will rise again” Mark 9:31. From the ashes and the grave our God burst forth like an Epicormic Bloom. The Love of God prevailing over death that we might know of Life and Home beyond the end of our days.

To follow Jesus on the other side of the Cross means we follow out of Love. I John 4:19 tells us that “we love because God first loved us.” We have been greatly loved! To follow him is to become like him and to live for him in all we do. It flows out of love that we have received from God in Jesus Christ. So we follow him to work, to our homes, to the poor and forgotten, to cooking meals and advocating for the widows and orphans. Watch and know... the blooms will burst forth in our lives and in the world about us.