Lent 5 B 2009
Tim Gallagher of the Sioux City Journal wrote the Wednesday before last:
The custom of planting potatoes on Good Friday should bear fruit -- or vegetables this year, weather permitting.
That's because Good Friday occurs April 10. By that time, we hope, the soil temperature should be past 50 degrees.
Using Good Friday as the marker, however, doesn't always yield a bountiful crop. For example, Good Friday a year ago was March 21. If you were to plant potatoes Saturday (March 21, 2009), one expert believes it might be an exercise in futility. Or, you could set your own family up for a potato famine.
The practice of planting potatoes on Good Friday may have its origin in Ireland in the 1600s or 1700s, various sources indicate. One legend is that Irish Catholics believed their potato seeds "baptized" if planted on Good Friday. The practice followed as Irish immigrants made their way to the United States following the potato famine.
And while Good Friday might be fine for areas in the southern U.S., it isn't always warm enough in places like Sioux City. It wasn't a year ago this week. Good Friday dates can range from March 20 to April 23.
"Common sense tells me when the soil temperature is cold and the soil is wet, the potatoes will spoil," said Mimi Shanahan, a horticulturist and master gardener with ISU Extension in Woodbury County. "You plant potatoes as soon as the ground can be worked in the spring."
A rule of thumb for this green thumb involves taking a handful of soil. If the soil sticks together, it's too wet and probably too cool for potatoes to grow. If the soil crumbles easily, it's time to dig and deposit the spuds.
Jesus says, “Verily 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. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
These are stark and bleak words, for a rather stark and bleak time of the year. Looking around the ground is still frozen in places. The banks of snirt and slush line the roads. The ground is not yet hospitable to seeds. It is not the right time for planting any thing especially in these northern climbs.
I grew up in an environment different from here where the custom was to plant potatoes on Good Friday and where the corn was always knee high by the forth of July. I always thought it was universal that people plant their potatoes on Good Friday, but I guess that up here it probably rarely makes sense because the ground is too cold and wet. But when Good Friday Comes later like it does this year, you better believe that the gardeners in Southern Minnesota will be waiting for Good Friday to plant their taters.
Jesus has been holding back until now. Jesus has not revealed the full and grand scope of what is about to occur, and even when he does it is still impossible to believe. How can this be that the Son of the living God would be lifted up first on a cross, then from the grave and then into heaven? This would certainly not be my plan for the salvation of the world if I was standing in Jesus’ shoes. That the Son of God would freely give his life for the sake of the world is, frankly, unbelievable.
In my early years I grew up surrounded by corn and beans. When seed time came we would see the farmers out with their implements preparing the soil for the seeds they were about to plant. I remember trucks loaded with seed meeting the seed drills out in the middle of the field and watching them pour the fifty pound sacks into the hoppers. It was always a risk when these farmers put that precious seed into their planters and scrapped the surface of the earth back and forth. They were putting this expensive seed into the soil where it would be exposed to the water, wind, and pests. The possibilities of runoff, rot, and rust were real.
Jesus knows the time has come to make his journey toward Jerusalem. In John there is no sweating blood or tears of anguish—there is acceptance, deliberateness, and courage. This is no Jesus meek and mild, but this Jesus is fully aware of the pain he will bear. He knows the price he must pay to take our sins away. Like the farmers who risk their livelihoods to plant seed every year to give us our daily bread, Jesus risks his very life and his very body so that like a seed it must be lifted up, poured out, and buried in the ground.
Just like the farmer has faith, we too believe in the promise of God’s providence. God not only provides for us our daily bread, he has given to us a Savior. And we his children have been buried with him by baptism into his very death, so that on the last day we will be raised with him and live with him eternally. We have been baptized not only into his death, but we have been baptized into his resurrection. And as sure as the grass will start greening and the winter wheat will pierce the surface of the soil we shall be raised up with him. Because the Holy Spirit has marked and sealed us with the cross we shall not die.
Jesus risks everything for us. He gives his life so that we can live in him. And though, as a community we see more burials than baptisms, we should not be discouraged. For the saints that we plant in the ground will rise again because of their baptism into Christ. And when we do celebrate the baptism of a child, or the affirmation of baptism by new members and confirmands, we ought to really celebrate because the baptism they receive and affirm is the very promise of the resurrection and eternal life.
When the waters of baptism were poured over us, we went down into death. We were buried with Christ. When we were baptized into Christ we died the big death. We died to sin; we died to all evil; and we died to death itself. As a result, we will be lifted up with Jesus, not onto a cross, but out of the grave, and into heaven. Jesus has drawn you to himself in baptism into his death and resurrection so that you may not die, but have eternal life. Amen.
