The Spring Has Come

1 The spring has come, let all the church be part of it!
 The world has changed, and God is at the heart of it!
 New light, new day, new colour after winter grey.
 New light, new day,
  the spring has come, let all the church be part of it!

For some reason the rather obscure Easter hymn The Spring has Come has been floating around in my addled brain lately. It is #187 in Voices United, right after Now the Green Blade Rises, another hymn nobody sings. I like them both, a lot, and I've been noodling around on my mandolin, playing the rather jaunty tune for The Spring has Come.

Yesterday we drove north to Renfrew for the funeral of my step-mother-in-law and on the trip we made our way through the stages of Spring in Southern-ish Ontario. It is much greener here along the Bay of Quinte and once we were north of Highway 7 there were lakes with some ice cover as well as vestiges of snow in the woods. Yet there are the signs of hope everywhere.

My step-mother had a deep Christian faith, and she liked to talk theology with me, but I didn't enjoy discussing theology with her. She adhered to an oddly apocalyptic restoration-of-Israel-before-the return-of-Jesus outlook that I don't think is supported by scripture and is a distraction from all the possibilities for living the Gospel in the here-and-now. We never argued about it, but I was often the "artful dodger" in conversation.

2 The sun is warm, let all God's children play in it!
 The world expands, let's spread the Gospel way in it!
 New leaf, new thrust, new greening for the love of Christ.
 New leaf, new thrust,
  the sun is warm, let all God's children play in it!



I liked her best when we chatted about the beauty of the farm location where she and my father-in-law retired. She grew up in the Ottawa Valley and loved what had been her family farm. At the kitchen table we would talk about the birds and the flowers and the trees, including the gorgeous pines and maples on the property. She admired the way her father had eked out a living on the rather inhospitable agricultural land of that area.  She enjoyed the lake property the family owned near the farm. In these conversations her religious fervor would shift to simple appreciation, an awareness of the gifts of the Creator. There were several nice tributes in the funeral service but sadly nothing about her love of Creation.

Ah well, she was a person of Easter hope, and her Spring has come.

3 The spring has come, new people are the flowers of it.
 Through wind and rain, new life is in the showers of it.
 New bud, new shoot, new hope will bear the Spirit's fruit.
 New bud, new shoot,
  the spring has come, new people are the flowers of it!