It’s summer time and New England’s lily-laden roadsides are decorated with farm stands overflowing with sweet corn, tomatoes, squash and a wonderful assortment of God’s bounty. Yesterday I stopped and bought tomatoes. They are so much better than the hothouse tomatoes at the supermarket. I grew up sprinkling salt on tomatoes but I had a friend who introduced me to the joy of sprinkling them with sugar. Last evening as I was looking at those tiny white tomato seeds I remembered what Paul had to say in I Corinthians 15 about what we will look like after resurrection morning. Paul said, “But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?’ How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.”
That little white tomato seed doesn’t look anything like the luxuriant green vine and the sumptuous, roundish, red tomato that fills one’s hand and drips with lush red juice that flavors a great sandwich. So don’t bother looking in the mirror and thinking what you see is what you will look like in heaven. You are going to be so fine. No Mister or Miss Universe will ever come close to the glorious you. Another joy will be that as different as we will be we will recognize each other. Perhaps we might need a reintroduction. The last time I saw my grandma she was 90. That’s all I remember. When I see her again she will not look 90. Perhaps 900?!
Written by Roger Bothwell on July 20, 2016
PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
rogerbothwell.org