(I had intended for this to come out last week on the Saturday before Easter…but time being what it is, and my having chosen to not open my computer last Saturday, here we are now. This was somewhat hastily thrown together, but I am sharing it with you all anyway. Just some thoughts about faith, planting seeds, and celebrating the resurrection of Christ.)
We did a new thing this spring. We started some seedlings indoors.
Now that it’s been a few weeks and the sweet little things have germinated, every morning brings a new gasp and grin when I turn the grow lights on and see just how much they’ve grown overnight. Little shamrock-like cabbage sprouts, delicate pink celosia, and heart-shaped basil reach for the light in their pure desires to grow taller and stronger.
It’s exciting to have a newborn garden inside my kitchen. (Not to mention, I think the grow lights actually played a significant part in taking the edge off my is-it-spring-yet frenzy.) While it may be new for us, planting seeds feels to me like taking part in something ancient and unchangeable. The same way a cemetery feels comforting,1 so is it comforting to drop a seed into the dirt, just like people have been doing since the earth began. I love gardening because it makes me feel connected to my ancestors, it gives me a sense of humble power, and it grounds me (literally).
But it’s not only that. These last few weeks as I have watched our tiny seedlings burst forth, I have felt it as a slap back to consciousness, almost a reprimand for my doubts. Because you see, I had major doubts after I had planted these seeds. I didn’t really think anything was going to come up.
This happens almost every time I plant something, even though I know better. I know that little speck in my palm, powerless as it may look, will grow into something green and lovely that will feed me. I know it because of science, and because of history, and because I have been gardening since I was small. I have seen the proof every year of my life. Even so, the doubt invariably enters my mind. Every time I plant a seed, I still look at that tiny speck in my palm and think, now way. How?
My doubts were a little compounded in this instance. Firstly, because we’ve never done this before, at least not with any success. The only time I have ever started anything indoors before, nothing happened, so there was that lingering blot on my record.2 A new endeavor usually brings its share of uncertainty.
But if I may validate my doubts further, these seeds were old, some of them quite old. I didn’t want to waste what seed I had leftover if there was a chance it was viable. So I planted three-year-old basil seed, completely ignoring the package’s entreaty that pelleted seed must be used within six months of purchase.
I planted the seeds of squash we ate for supper last winter, and rosemary that traveled with me to Ohio three years ago, before my husband and I ever knew each other existed. I planted flowers that I have heard are notoriously difficult to grow from seed. I planted them all in questionable potting mix that the woman at the nursery assured me would be good enough. When I was done, I looked at the trays full of bare, black soil, the small white seeds still somewhat visible under the crumbled surface, and I thought again, no way.
Planting seeds requires faith in a painfully obvious and non-optional way. To farm is to have faith — as Audrey Hepburn famously said, “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” You must trust that those absurdly small seeds in your hand have everything inside them to become a carrot, or an onion, or a head of cabbage, and all it requires from you is that you provide the proper environment — light, soil, moisture.
Farmers let their cow out to graze in brushy pastures of poison hemlock and rough fescue, and they trust that the cow knows what of the mix is good to eat and what’s not. And further, that the cow will turn that matter, which is inedible to us, into delicious calories. Tomorrow morning it will be golden cream for pouring in your coffee cup.
And here is the part that gets me still: even when the farmer doubts this, that is still what happens. Seeds will grow and cows will give milk. Aside from the variances of proper care and condition, this is simply what they were made to do. Many times — in fact, most of the time — you can’t stop them.
Perhaps my old seeds in my less than top-notch soil germinated just to stick it in my face. Two weeks later, even the ranunculus are coming up. The squash is growing like gangbusters. They’re just doing their thing, and I feel not only silly but actually sorry that I even doubted they would.
(I’m not saying all your three-year-old seeds will grow; I’m just saying, watch and see.)
I wonder why I doubted so much. It is pure delight to be proved wrong.
I am thinking about the Resurrection, because last Sunday we celebrated Easter. (Like I said, these thoughts are coming to you somewhat belatedly, but the timing matters not.) Easter is when we celebrate with particular emphasis that truth which brings comfort and joy every day of the year for those who are in Christ — that Jesus died on the cross to atone for the sins of all mankind, past, present, and future, in order that we might be at peace with God and have eternal life. This is the good news of the Gospel. What good news!
When I began writing this, it was the Saturday before Easter. For me, it’s difficult to consider the day between Jesus’s death and his resurrection without pondering the immense doubt that such a scene would have brought.
Jesus’s death was foretold, just as His life had been.3 Many people believed He was the Messiah, and even more came to believe after His crucifixion.4 How would it be, though, to see your savior physically destroyed before your eyes? The day after Jesus’s death was also the sabbath, so the Jewish people were obliged to rest, which I think must have been incredibly difficult to do after such a terrible thing had just happened. There must have been broken-hearted cries, and I can’t imagine there was not some doubt.
I’ve often wondered what that day would be like, and how it would have felt to be there. Would I have believed, in the day between, that my Savior would do what He said and conquer death, that seemingly ultimate force? It’s a length of faith that has never been asked of me, and I don’t know. I expect it would have brought me to the edge of doubt, and I likely would have fallen in. Because I, like all of us, am prone to doubt, and the death of Jesus is about as dark as hope has ever gotten and still flickered.
We know what happens next, of course. (My friend Jessica tells the story wonderfully in her article, The Greatest Story, which bears retelling even if you’ve heard it many times.) I’ve always loved the metaphor of the in-between time, though, and the parallels between waiting for Jesus’s first coming to earth, waiting for His resurrection, and waiting on His return.
“Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!”
~ Andrew Peterson, Remember and Proclaim
This is where we find ourselves now in the canon of history — waiting for Jesus to come again. Our pastor has been talking about this recently, about the almost-but-not-yet state of our faith as Christians. We’ve received His promises, but not yet fully. We are saved from sin and death, but still mortal. Constantly being sanctified, but not yet glorified. There is peace with God, but there is no perfection yet. We are awaiting these things, and we are living by faith.
What does all this have to do with planting seeds?
Such things as these bring it back around for me in the tiniest ways, but still wondrous enough to make me tremble.
The small, common reminders of life-altering truths may seem too simple to notice. But I don’t want to overlook these gifts, as gifts they are. Faith is a gift — I believe in planting seeds, because I believe they will grow and it will all be worth it, and that belief is a gift from God. I would not have this faith on my own.
In the same way, stretched and magnified, I believe in the work that led to my salvation, and I have faith that Christ will come again. “For by grave you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing: it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8)
I find immense comfort in the fact that even when I doubt, it literally changes nothing. If I had been there on the day Jesus died, if I had worked with the other women to prepare the sabbath meal with tear-stained eyes and a fearful heart, and I had wondered in my weakness whether it was really true that He would come back, He would have still come back. If I had fallen into doubt, the third day would still have dawned, and Jesus would still have fulfilled His purpose.
I find comfort, too, in the universe of all that I cannot control. My own whims do not determine my sanctification, and my lack of love for my Lord does nothing to diminish His continuous love for me. This is a wonder I never tire of contemplating.
I think planting seeds for me will always be representative of a test of faith, no matter how many years I live and continue to garden. The miracle that a tiny, dormant black speck can grow into food that nourishes is one that will never cease while the world remains. And I, weak human soul that I am, will never stop being amazed by the gift of faith that pervades my inclination towards doubt, and the wonder that follows it.
I’ll wrap up with the lyrics of this song by Andrew Peterson called No More Faith, which I love for its earnestness —
This is not another song about the mountains,
Except about how hard they are to move.
Have you ever stood before them
Like a mustard seed that's waiting for some proof?
I say faith is a burden, it's a weight to bear.
It's brave and bittersweet.
And hope is hard to hold to
Lord I believe, only help my unbelief.
Till there's no more faith and no more hope,
I'll see your face and Lord I'll know
There's no more faith, there's no more hope.
May we continue to receive faith as a gift, and continue to trust in the goodness and sovereignty of God until that wonderful and triumphant day.
Hallelujah! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed.
~Emma
Does anyone else feel this way? Cemeteries are a reminder that we all die, and we all once were here. I find this comforting.
This was some questionable seeds from Tractor Supply started in Red Solo cups on my very cold windowsill in college — in plain old fill dirt from the yard, to boot.
Isaiah 53
Matthew 27:54. I love this moment of the Roman centurion’s irresistible belief.
This is beautiful. Thanks for sharing your doubt and reminding me that processes unfold as they are intended to whether we believe they will or not.
This is beautiful, so glad I found your writing Emma. You have expressed beautifully some experiences I too have had - such as putting a seed in the soil and thinking "no way!"
I like how you draw out the connection between planting and faith, as when we think about it, there is so much that is out of our control in helping this plant to grow and mature. Truly God gives the increase.
And funny how you say about feeling comforted in a cemetery. Here in the UK, my wife and I love to visit old churchyards and cemeteries. We even have one behind our home - a non-conformist cemetery with some fascinating graves (including a slave from New Orleans who escaped to England and was converted in the Strict Baptist church down the road from our house).