...and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as a rose. Isaiah 35:1.
A single white rose with the tips of each petal tinged in soft pink appeared on my desk Valentine's Day. The note on the cellophane sleeve read "Your Secret Pal," a student council project where students give teachers tokens of appreciation.
Not having a pretty bud vase in the classroom, I grabbed a green travel mug, filled it with water and set the flower on my desk. I did not add an aspirin or a bit of bleach to the water nor did I recut the end of the stem or utilize any of the other hints about making roses last longer. All day Thursday and Friday, I enjoyed the sheer beauty of the lone rose. Many of my students commented on it. Of course, a long stemmed rose drooping out of a too short coffee cup set on a cluttered desk made it noticeable.
On Monday, I returned to school fully ready to discard a dead flower. To my surprise, the bloom was as lovely, if not more so, than it had been on Friday. The petals still retained their velvet look. And so the rose continued to sit on my desk all week long.
The following Monday, the rose still held its beauty, but something new had appeared. What had looked like a tiny branch on the stem had now opened to reveal a new leaf.
That week, my students and I watched as the new green leaf grew larger and larger.
By week's end, a couple of petals had turned brown and gradually, they fell to the desk. But still, the leaf grew bigger each day. I called a florist to see if growers were adding any substance to their long stemmed roses to make them last longer, but she had not heard of such. She offered the same collection of hints for making roses last longer.
I would like to say that single green leaf still grows on my desk, but after the petals had dropped one by one, so did finally the new growth. Yet it had been a marvel not only for me, but for my students as well.
As I have contemplated what I had witnessed over the course of several weeks through the season of Lent, that single rose haunted my thoughts for a logical explanation. I no longer need logic, because that single rose has come to symbolize Easter for me.
Whether it is storming or a beautiful sunrise greets the day, Easter always dawns brightly with hope. It not only announces the arrival of spring, it brings the promise of the nearness of God. Like the rose sitting on my desk, He is closer than we think.
If small children are in the home, the giggles, the last minutes egg hunts, the new clothes add an air of excitement that adults have often put aside as childish ways. The children have much to teach us about relishing the moment. The pleasure the rose brought to my students certainly enhanced my fascination with its longevity.
Yet, when the sun sets on Easter Day, and we're tired of all of the accompanying festivities, we frequently pack the message of Easter away along with all its colorful decorations and turn to the serious business of spring cleaning. However, my rose would not let me put it away. After all, without Easter, we would not celebrate Christmas.
If the message of Easter touches our heart, it moves into to stay and affects every act of every day of our lives. We do not have to chase people away by preachifying, but Christians must visibly live a life that makes others want the internal peace we know.
The new green of a tiny leaf on the stem of my rose grew and grew. Likewise, Easter must grow in our hearts. It is like so many facets of life that we lose if we do not use them properly. The parable of the talents attest to the truth of this fact of life.
Likewise, Christians must grow in their faith and good deeds daily. We cannot become like the bored teenager who tries, quits, and proclaims on his t-shirt, "been there, done that." Easter is renewable, day in, day out.
Finally, all the petals fell from the bloom and so did the new leaf. As I threw away what had become a symbol for me, I knew all was well. After all, I had learned the lesson of an Easter rose.
2002
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