"Parable of the Tulips"

     One autumn day a man went out and planted a bed of tulip bulbs.  As fall became winter and winter dragged on, the man began to anticipate the groundbreaking of his tulips.  He had carefully prepared the soil, winter was giving the bulbs the cold treatment they needed to bloom.  Finally spring, with its warming sun, had arrived.  During the month of May, the man watched as the soft green tips of the sword shaped leaves started inching upward.  Then came the flower stalk.  At last the blooms opened on one particularly warm, sunny morning.  All day long the man thought of how he would sit on his porch and enjoy the kaleidoscope of color provided by these spring beauties.  But, as he pulls into his driveway his heart sinks.  He sees the neighbor's dog running from the tulip bed.  Quickly he goes to the bed to find that the dog has trampled the tulips into a muddled mess.  The beauty was gone . . . forever. . . or was it?

     Another winter came and went.  The soil was warmed by the rays of the sun.  One morning the man sees small, pale green leaves poking their heads from the bed.  Within a few weeks the gardener was sitting on his porch sipping coffee enjoying the palette of bold colors provided by his tulips which had risen from the ground to provide a more spectacular scene than ever imagined.

     Is this not like the coming of Jesus into the world?  Coming into a world which had anticipated his arrival.  Then the Messiah was here.  Teaching.  Showing compassion as never seen before.  Healing the sick.  Raising the dead.  Touching the untouchables.  Loving the unloved.  Then, in his prime, he was cut down -- or should we say raised up -- on the cruel cross, and laid in a tomb.  He was gone . . . forever . . . or was he?

       "[H]e humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!  Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."   Philippians 2:8-11 (NIV)

-Told by Howard Belt

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