Pastor Hugh's January 2009 Meditation
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THE PROMISE OF THE LILY
In September 2007, 16 months ago, we began our exploration through our stained glass windows. This month we come to the last window, one depicting a simply three-flowered lily. The window can be found in our balcony.
Click on image to see a larger view of St. Paul’s “Resurrection Lily” Window, in a separate window.
Perhaps if I had thought this through better, we might have begun this series a few months later so as to end in April to coincide with Easter. After all, for generations the lily has been used by the Church to symbolize Jesus’ resurrection. Yet, I think it fitting to end our journey at this time of year, to coincide with a new year, a time of new beginnings and hope.
As symbols tend to go, there is rarely unanimity in regards to the various symbolic meanings of the lily. While the lily has been used as a symbol of Jesus’ resurrection, and the three-flowered lily, pictured here, often symbolizes the Holy Trinity, its color (pure white) and simplicity has reminded many of the Virgin Mary, a symbol of faith and purity in her own right. Tradition has it that the “Madonna Lily” was yellow until Mary plucked it, where upon it turned white. According to historians, the lily, or in French, Fleur-de-lis, was used predominantly throughout the first half of the Middle Ages to symbolize Jesus. As time went on, however, its connection to the Virgin Mary became more common. Fulbert of Chartres (bishop of Chartres Cathedral from 1006 until his death in 1028) drawing upon Song of Solomon 2:2, described the Virgin Mary as, “a lily among thorns (lilium inter spinas), preserved from all impurity of the flesh and the spirit because she was to be the receptacle of Divine Wisdom.” By 1300 the lily’s symbolic connection to Mary was firmly established.
In the Protestant churches, however, the tendency is to understand the lily as symbolizing Jesus’ resurrection. Around Easter time countless Sunday School children are reminded of this symbolism when they are given a seemingly-dead bulb to bury in soil (to symbolize Jesus’ death and burial) only to witness its springing forth into a beautiful white lily (to symbolize his Resurrection) a short time later.
For Christians, the resurrection of Jesus is the single most important event that defines our lives and empowers our faith. Like a spring lily pushing up out of the earth, our hope (rooted in Jesus’ triumph over death) can spring up anew from the cold wintery ground of our lives. When we have lost hope, when we have fallen into despair, the promise of the lily, which is the promise of the resurrection, is that in Christ, hope and new life has become our inheritance. Death (especially including its myriad forms that tend to define us as lacking in worth and drawing us into meaninglessness and despair) has been overcome. We can greet the future with a renewed hope and confidence.
January 1st marks a new year in our secular calendars. It is quite common, therefore, to use the beginning of a new year as an opportunity to take stock of our past and to look forward in hope and renewed commitment towards our future. For the people of St. Paul’s, in January we will begin holding a series of house meetings as a way of starting a process of
spiritual renewal and discernment for the whole congregation. And while it may seem that a daunting task lies ahead, we go into the new year, and into this time of discernment, with the promise of the lily: Where faith abides there is no barrier, not even death itself, that can keep us from fulfilling God’s will for our lives. Like the lily that pushes up from the sepulchral ground into the light of spring, we too face the promise and limitless possibilities of our future. Through Christ, our hope is secure, our future is bright.
Hugh R. B. Haffenreffer
Pastor
January 2009
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