The lake ice is melting, shifting colors from white to gray. Ducks arrow down to splash around its edges. By the house, a few green things push tips up through the thawing soil.

At this time when most of the world is on lockdown, spring comes out from under the winter snow. Even as we stop commerce, stop congregating, stop our competitions and celebrations, there is no stopping the annual chrysallis of death to life outside our windows.

Last weekend we celebrated resurrection; the unstoppable power and love of a God who would battle death and hell just to be with us. Quarantine may have prevented us from gathering to celebrate, but nothing can stop this truth from bringing hope and joy and gratitude to those of us who have been given over to it. “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us,” John exclaimed, “that we should be called children of God!” This is a God who has proven His love, not just proclaimed it, by walking out of a tomb, forever marked by the price of that love.

Those early witnesses, gathered together in fear and wonder, couldn’t comprehend what it all meant. They couldn’t foresee that this one event would spread into a worldwide movement that would change the course of all of western civilization. They just knew that Jesus had risen from the dead; had seen with their own eyes; had gingerly touched the evidential wounds. They had heard Him with their own ears, reassuring them of His presence and urging them to share the news.

So they did. And one day, down through millennia, on the other side of the world, that news reached the heart of a young girl sitting on a log by Strawberry Creek. Not only did it change the world, it also changed her world.

The lake ice is melting, and I am reminded how this resurrection life keeps me pushing upward through the darkness, up toward the light and life that waits for me like a spring blessing on the other side.