The liveliest death

AM Psalm 119:137-160 • Job 23:1-12 • John 1:43-51
PM Psalm 139 • Proverbs 4:7-18 • John 12:20-26

Jesus tells Philip and Andrew, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Grains die a very lively death when they fall. Germination is sheer vitality: thirsty, hungry cells drink from the soil without and consume the heady brew of sugars within to power their gravity-defying thrust through the earth from darkness into the light. By the end, the seed is reduced to its fibrous shell, an empty tomb, as its internal source of life is exhausted for the sake of the plant that now feeds on sun and water and air to bear fruit.

As we are a mere two weeks past Easter this reading sends me back to the tomb, and the Orthodox Paschal Troparion: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life!”

The grain has died, the tombal seed coat is empty, and life comes from underground. I could end my spiritualized plant science lesson—my reflection specialty—here, but I’ll glean more from the metaphor to recall that the plant, even as it grows upwards, still sends its roots below the earth, deeper with each passing day. Christ’s tomb may be vacant but as long as we fill ours, God is there to usher us upwards into fruitful life, and life everlasting.

Written by Kathryn Haydon

Kathryn holds a doctorate in Plant Science from the University of Arkansas and currently lives in St. Louis where she works as a food and plant scientist. She shares a happy, book-filled home with her husband Nathan and their cats Ollie and Adair.