Dying Yellow Leaves

Fall, my favorite season is finally here! I get to drink coffee without breaking a sweat, smell camp fires, and wear hoodies underneath sport coats. There’s something about dying leaves that inspires creativity. Perhaps you can relate. But when you really stop and think about it, does the awe we have for these crunchy dead things strike anyone as maybe just a fraction of a little bit odd? Somewhere there sits a child whose parent exclaims in a sweet voice, “Look honey! It’s fall! Look at all the beautiful colors! Look at all those beautiful leaves!… those dead… dying leaves. Watch them plummet to the ground! So beautiful in their deadly spirals of doom.” Ever noticed how fall is the only time we find beauty in death? I wonder if that was on purpose. I wonder if God meant for it to be that way, if maybe the leaves reflect what Christ did on the cross. Do you see it? The leaves are echoing his death! They die so nobly and brilliantly. They die beautifully. And in three seasons, they return as if reverberating Christ’s resurrection after three days of death, to repeat the cycle once again, continually reminding us of the love of our God. Thanks to God, when we think about our mortality, we can be happy about our eternity. How creative is He to put his signature in the leaves! I think artwork says a lot about its creator. We can all hear songs we’ve never heard before, and immediately know the artist because we are familiar with them. We are familiar with their work. So take a look at us. Take a look at the mountains. Take a look at the leaves. Take a look at God’s creation. What does it tell you about Him? Never has there been a death more beautiful. Never will there be a death.

Romans 1:20
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.