Week of June 5, 2000
Pastor Dan

"What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed."   Pastor Dan W.

The cemetery was under a grove of magnificent old live oak trees which had littered the ground with thousands of green acorns. The pastor was going by the book for the burial service, reading the lessons and the committal prayers when he must have noticed the hoard of children -- grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the deceased -- scattered under the trees. He closed his book and addressed the kids. Inviting them to come stand near him, he picked up an acorn and asked the children, "What is this?" Of course, they all knew. It was an acorn.

"That's right," the pastor responded. "But it's something else. It's a tree, just like this giant one we're standing under. Once this great tree was captured in a little acorn shell like this one. But when it was buried in the earth, and when the rain and sun nurtured it, the acorn became what it had really been potentially all along, an oak tree. That's what has happened to your grandfather. We will bury him in the ground, but already God is at work making him what he was intended to be. We don't know exactly what that is, but we know that it's at least as great as the difference between the little acorn and the giant tree. And we know that it is very good."

Fellow acorns, we await the resurrection already made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a mystery. It is a promise. It is a cause for hope. May the word of promise give you courage this week as you face death in your world.

God of life, give us grace to trust your promises for us. Give us courage when we fear death and those things in our world that remind us of death. Amen

Contributed by Pastor Dan
Published Monday June 5, 2000
Week 28 of Liturgical Year B