The other night, as my boys and I were leaving the YMCA after an evening swim, we heard a thunderous sound in the distance. One asked what the noise might be, so we all stopped and listened for a moment. The pattern was too measured to be anything other than a drum line rehearsing. This meant that somewhere on that Durham night, a marching band was practicing. Where there is a marching band, there’s football. Where there’s football, there’s fall — my favorite time of year!
The brilliant oranges and reds of changing leaves are dotting the foliage in our neighborhoods and city streets. Soon, horizons will burn with their colors as the weather turns cooler. They will fall and crunch under our feet. As their bright green fades, you might hope they could hang on a little longer. “Just stay green,” we say. “Don’t change.” But there is a wisdom deeply inscribed in the rhythms of creation that we cannot wish away or alter. The trees are listening to their Creator and not to our hopes to keep things just the way they are. In an age-old cycle, the tree must let go of what was in order to flourish in the seasons to come.
Isaiah sings beautifully and memorably about this spiritual and natural process: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” (43:18-19)
To my knowledge, “autumn” is referenced explicitly only once in the entire Bible. In an obscure, little-read passage in Jude, false teachers are compared to “autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted — twice dead.” (1:12) It’s a powerful indictment, but hear the assumption that lies behind the image: autumn should be a fruitful and abundant time. We have to hold together this assumption of abundance with the experience of letting go.
Let go? Haven’t we released enough? If the pandemic has forced anything upon us, it’s been the release of just about everything we found comfortable and settled. And yet we’re surrounded by trees that don’t hold on to their dead leaves. We’re entering a new season of life and life together. Whenever we do that, what came before can easily become more important than God’s “next” for us — if we allow it.
Remember that in its own way, what happens across the fall preaches a message of redemption — the good news of Jesus. Harvest only comes after a death and burial. Resurrection only manifests when something — or someone — has died. As Jesus taught his disciples: “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24) Our lives will only reap a harvest if we first release them to the care and wisdom of our Creator.
We all want our lives to matter, for our time to count, to leave a legacy that reaches beyond us. The full harvest of a Spirit-led life and church may be hard to discern in the moment, but it will inevitably come as we release our lives and our control into the soil of God’s will. Jesus also taught his disciples: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” (Matt. 16:24-25)
As you pray into this new season — as you consider your own changing life and our church — look for the spiritual lessons all about you. Remember with gratitude what has been, give thanks for the bounty found now, and anticipate with wonder and trust what God will yet do. Unrevealed until its season, the marvelous promise of God’s future shines brighter and more gloriously than even the most vivid vista this fall.
Grace and Peace,