The Season of Easter is with us again. In the ancient church, the fifty days until Pentecost was the time when the new initiates were introduced to the mystagogy, the mysteries, of the chirch. Mysteries of scripture, for instance. And just as the Season of Easter comes around every spring, so do the daffodils. They lie dormant in the earth most of the year, and then suddenly, it seems, they spring forth and bloom. Sometimes, we don’t even notice them growing, just when they bloom. When that happens, we often have a special little moment of peace and wonderment. Scripture can be like that too. Like a daffodil, whose bulb is planted only once, the Word plants itself in our minds when we read it. There it lies, until nourished by learning and other insights, it is ready to bloom the next time it is read.
For instance, in today’s gospel, Jesus opens the minds of his disciples to understand the scriptures. I can remember reading this passage many times throughout the years. It probably wasn’t until I came here, and studied the Isaiah with Dr. Sanders, that my knowledge was sufficiently deepened and ready. I can remember reading it again, and suddenly, the daffodil of understanding bloomed. The words that G-d spoke when He commissioned Isaiah came to mind, the part where G-d tells Isaiah that he is to dull the people’s minds, stop up their ears, and blind their eyes so that they will not understand (Isa 6:9-10). That was a WOW moment for me – so just maybe the disciples were never supposed to understand at all. Brings more sense to the seeming denseness of the disciples to Jesus’ teachings, and each time I read about that in the gospels, I get this little tingle of understanding. Perhaps, the daffodil bulb is growing a little closer to blooming again.
In working with today’s gospel reading, I actually had a few new understandings – there was now a reason why a verse or passage was there. Things that I had learned right here at seminary, while applied in a different place at that time, suddenly made a connection here. Jesus calms the frightened disciples by saying ‘Peace be upon you.’ The third or fourth time I read that this week, understanding suddenly came – a big WOW. A big daffodil just bloomed. Jesus is reminding them, and us, that he is still divine by saying something calming. Much as the heavenly messengers who came before him had done, saying things like ‘Do not be afraid.’ And now, his emphasis on his humanness makes more sense too, not just in calming the disciples, but reasserting his dual nature. For me, the latter was more of a deeper understanding than something totally new. Again, a daffodil bulb grew a bit, getting closer to potentially blooming. And then, he eats a fish…..fish….early symbol for Christ…..fisherman……catch. Another sermon for another day in that, I suspect.
Then Jesus opened the minds of the disciples to the scriptures. The bulbs of the Word that had been planted from the writings of Moses, of David the psalmist, of the prophets and writers; those same bulbs that Jesus had been watering and nurturing with his teachings, suddenly bloomed. Now the disciples realized the fullness of G-d’s plan. A new way of living, forgiveness of sins, and life everlasting at the Day of the Lord, among other things. Then Jesus commissioned them to go out and plant the bulbs of the Word where there were none, and water and nourish those that had already been planted. Nurture and water them with his teachings and their newfound understanding, and to commission others to follow in their footsteps, as they were following in his. To start in Jerusalem and then move outward – and church history records that they did go to the far reaches of the known world, and that others in later times went to other new places as well; China, Ireland, and Russia, among others.
Speaking of far places, daffodils have another resemblance to the Word – they are hard to get rid of once planted. You’ve seen them, those renegade daffodils that appear in the middle of nowhere. We have a couple of those in our yard, near the driveway, nowhere near any of the other flower beds. They keep blooming year after year, always surprising and delighting us because we forget about them. The Word is the same way; once planted, it too is hard to uproot. I heard a story that illustrates just that when I attended a Chrism Mass and retreat during Holy Week with a good friend. The priest, who is also the presiding bishop of the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, was asked to talk about a mission trip he had made to Europe this past fall. He told of going to a tiny church in Lithuania which was connected to the Communion, and celebrating mass with the people there. The first thing he noticed was that the women were all seated in the few chairs, and the men were lining the walls. As he was celebrating the mass, he noticed that one by one, the men started crying. And then, when the men came up to receive communion, it was the women who were crying. Upon inquiry, he was told that for the many of the men, it was perhaps one of the few times, or the first in a very long time, that they had been to church and taken communion. Because during all those years of soviet occupation, to so would have been a very bad career move. Some of the women, it seems, were not so vulnerable, perhaps because they didn’t work outside the home. Those women, in addition to keeping their own faith alive and faithfully attending church when possible, had been busy planting the Word, and then watering and nurturing it in their men all those years. For them, seeing their men finally come to church and receive communion was like seeing daffodils bloom. Lots of them. All at once. For the men, it was finally feeling free to being open to understanding what their women had been talking about and living out all those long years. Once planted, very hard to remove - both daffodils and the Word.
As a reminder that these bulbs can bloom at any time, and that no sermon is set in stone until delivered, Friday morning at 3:30 I was lying in bed, going over the sermon where the calling of Isaiah had bloomed. Unexpectedly, I heard in my head a part of an aria that I recognized immediately. ‘The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the death unstopped.’ Handel’s Messiah, quoting Isaiah 35:5. Some commentaries say that refers to the actual healings Jesus would do, others the new understanding of scripture he would bring, and still others to the spreading of the Word to the Gentiles. As is so often the case, multiple possibilities in a single scripture.
As I close, let me leave you with this vision. Because we are out there, right now, planting more bulbs, and nourishing others, the next time the gaze of the Trinity returns to a place where we are active, they see even more growth, and more blooms. And just as daffodils bring smiles to our faces every spring, maybe they too, the Trinity, will smile.
