You can’t beat Fall color. Leaf watchers tend to have a favorite tree that encompasses what Fall is to them—be it the shape, the shades, or even the way they fall. My wife is partial to the Ginko, whereas I appreciate Sugar Maples. But aside from the aesthetics, if we stop and think about it, Fall leaves are dying leaves.
It’s not pleasant to think about it, but the process of Fall is the shedding of things that have held on to plants and trees and then fall away. This leaves a barrenness on the trees that some people seriously struggle with in the colder seasons. And yes, there is the promise and positivity of Spring and its new growth. There’s plenty of talk about new life and new things. There’s words like budding and sprouting. But what about death? Should we focus on that?! Yes.
(A sunset view of a beautiful oak in my front yard)
“We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” —Romans 6.2-4 (NIV)
Without the death of the leaves, there is no room for the new life that needs to build up and spring forth. There is no budding; there is no sprouting; not if the old, shriveled, crackling leaves are still taking up space. There has to be a death in order for there to be a life—spiritually speaking.
Christians are those who have been born from above or ‘born again’. We have ‘died’ to our original way of thinking about life and the world we live in, and we have been raised into a new life, into Jesus’ life. We live redemptively instead of destructively.
So when you see the leaves this season, think about their death, realizing how important that death is as it makes room for the new life that comes. Jesus seeks to give you new life—His life—so make room today for what is to come. Let the old things pass away knowing that something new is to come.
—Pastor Whit