This Lenten season has been heavy.
Immanuel and friends have lost in death several loved ones in recent months. These losses have been felt deeply to our core. Our lives were intertwined like the roots of giant redwood trees.
Photo, The Generals Highway passes between giant redwoods in Sequoia National Park by Brian W. Schaller - Own work, FAL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30495887
Giant redwood trees, also known as sequoias, grow tall canopies up to 350 feet and have very shallow root systems about 6 to 12 feet deep. (nps.gov) Do not let the word “shallow” fool you. Rather than roots that run deep, solo-searching for water and anchoring, the roots reach outward and intertwine into a network of roots often over a 80-foot spread. By plaiting together their roots, the trees feed one another by sharing condensed water and nutrients. This unique root system augments by enmeshing outlying trees to strengthen the whole against the harshness of wildfires and extreme weather events.
Our Wright City community is like a giant redwood grove with intertwined roots throughout the community. The result is a tribe that enfolds the weaker and the stronger, the newer and the older, into one diverse community of strength. Yes, intertwining has introduced us to painful realities that make us better together, and we expect more in our future.
Photo of our community celebrating Black History Month at Wesley Smith Chapel. Wright City is intertwining roots creating a community of diversity and strength.
Like humans, the giant redwoods have a lifespan. When a giant redwood tree dies, it is not wasted or forgotten. The tree decays into ultra-rich nutrients that are absorbed back into the community through its vast intertwined root system. In the place where the great tree stood, the tree nourished its community, and even seedlings sprouted in the nutrient-dense spot where the great tree stood.
Like the giant redwood, our intertwined lives with loved ones who have passed on in death continue to nourish our lives now and into the future. This nourishing cycle that reaches beyond death can be an example of how death cannot stop the motion of love. Nothing, not even death, can separate us from the nutrient-rich love of God and our “giant redwood” loved ones. Love is an ultra-rich nutrient that flows past the limits of our earthly life.
Photo of Immanuel's front steps where a memorial for the late Reinhold Niebuhr is located. Niebuhr is the author of the Serenity Prayer used by 12-step programs to break addictions. His love for God and humanity carries on beyond his death. Niebuhr and his brother, Richard, were born in Wright City when his father pastored Immanuel in the mid-1890s.
Love does not stop at the grave. This is the good news of Easter.
Romans 8:34-39, “Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
As it is written:
‘For your sake, we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Photo by Matteo Grando, Unsplash, of intertwined roots that are plaited together.
Allow the roots of your life to intertwine with the nutrient-rich love of Christ Jesus, your loved ones, your community, and world. Love freely and watch love overflow through all limitations, even the ultimate limitation of death.
May this Easter hold your greatest hope in love, resonating deeply to your core.
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