The Weekly Perspective
by Burke Shade, Associate Pastor
It’s Springtime and the world is bursting forth with life, color, and song. The birds and Robins are out in force, the rabbits are making hay, and the variations of creation’s green is approaching infinite. It’s all a very enjoyable season, delightful to the eyes, ears, skin, and even most people’s noses.
But is it ok to enjoy all this bursting of creation? Is it right to rejoice and splish-splash in all the flowers and grasses and fruits and streams of spring? Is it ok to revel in the fun of watching my dog splash through the six-inch deep water of the HOA’s retention pond, acting like she’s some 6 month old puppy, flipping left and right and hopping up and down and showering herself with showers of liquid rainbow light?
Jesus says it is: “…and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart” (Psalm 104:15). Wine and oil and bread could have just been medicinal; but Jesus broadens their blessings into the realm of joy and satiation and beauty.
The other JC agrees. In his chapter on The Right Use of the Present Life (Institutes, Book III), and under the section Earthly Things are Gifts of God, Calvin says: “Should the Lord have attracted our eyes to the beauty of the flowers, and our sense of smell to pleasant odors, and should it then be sin to drink them in?
“Has he not even made the colors so that the one is more wonderful than the other? Has he not granted to gold and silver, to ivory and marble a beauty which makes them more precious than other metals and stones?
“In one word, has he not made many things worth our attention that go far beyond our needs?” Like the Chinese waiter always says, “Enjoy!”