Easter Reflections 2025

by Sarah Dalrymple

The other day I noticed something from my kitchen window that took me by surprise. A worn terracotta pot has been sitting outside our garage since last summer. All winter, there was nothing there but soil, and a few dead, withered stalks. All winter, that terracotta pot been shouting at me – ‘empty me!’ and now it was springtime – almost Easter – and still it sat there.

But that day, as I looked more closely, I could see that there was something different about that terracotta pot. Tiny but healthy-looking green stalks had appeared – yes, the makings of a lovely begonia were bravely working their way up through the soil. I’d forgotten, you see, that there was a bulb in that pot from last summer. And so, all of a sudden, signs of new life were beginning to appear!

What is it about Spring that puts a smile back on our face? After cold, dark wintry mornings, it’s uplifting to see longer, brighter days. It’s as if nature suddenly reboots. Things that looked dead begin to show signs of new life. Daffodils appear, coaxed out of the ground by the warmer spring sun; lambs are suddenly skipping around the fields; my neighbour’s rose bush is even budding. It’s like everything is new.

As I thought about those new begonia shoots - new life coming out of that old ‘dead’ pot, the words of Paul to the church in Corinth came to my mind: ‘…Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come!’ (2 Cor 5:17).

That’s a verse for springtime, isn’t it? Of course, it’s above all a verse for Easter. When Paul talks about a new creation – being ‘in’ Christ, he’s talking about the glorious reality of the cross of Christ and its consequences for the believer. Because of the cross, the power of sin in our lives has been broken. ‘Therefore…’ we’ve been set free to live in new life – no longer ‘for ourselves’ but ‘for him who for (our) sake died and was raised’ (2 Cor 5:15).

That’s the radical change that knowing Jesus makes in our lives. It’s the difference between something old…and something that is…brand new!

I’m not great at gardening…and I’m not into upcycling. But I’ve heard it’s all about buying some Farrow and Ball paint, prepping an old piece of furniture and…hey presto, after the final coat, it looks like new. Sometimes a lick of paint can make it happen.

But the ‘new creation’ that Paul speaks about here is not about ‘upcycling’. It’s not about ‘patching up’ our lives and making some cosmetic changes. Being ‘in Christ’ means a radical, all-pervasive re-creation of our inner being. It’s about a brand new me! The old has gone – the new has come.

Of course, it’s an inner transformation that only God can bring about. Isn’t this the real message of Easter? God came to us, in the person of his Son, Jesus. Having lived a sinless life, he willingly gave it up,

• dying … so that we wouldn’t have to,
• carrying the weight and the guilt and the punishment of all our wrongdoing
• wiping out ‘the old’, and in its place giving ‘the new’ - his righteousness
• rising from the dead so that we could live – and live forever!

And so ‘the old has passed away; the new has come.’ And the God whose grace has created us anew will continue to supply us with all that we need to live out our new identity: we are now ‘in Christ’! We are now ‘a new creation!’

P.S. I can’t be totally sure that my begonia will flower in all its glory like it did last summer. Sooner or later, that old bulb will be totally lifeless. But life ‘in Christ’ has begun. And it will never end.