Compost and Communion

When I gave my compost bin a spin today the door flipped open and a considerable quantity of its contents spilled out onto the ground, the decomposing remains of leaves and leftover peelings, eggshells, and coffee grounds lifting their pungent aroma into the air. I knelt down to pick up this unexpected morning mess and immediately noticed its warmth - the compost bin was working, the material was alive even in its death. The power of life in the fruit of the earth is unquenchable.

That life of the soil has its origins in God. On the third day of creation, he spoke to the earth and by his living word brought life to the soil he’d formed and that soil brought forth plants and trees. They in turn ‘yielded seed’, the power to perpetuate life and growth embedded deep within them. On the third day, life sprang from the earth; on the third day, the seed in the ground sprang forth in unstoppable fruitfulness. Did I mention that it was on the third day?

And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. - Genesis 1:11-13

As we come to the third day of the week and kneel in the spilled compost messiness of our lives, we are reminded that we are dirt as well. God formed us from the soil, naming us after it, ‘Adam’ taken from ‘Adamah’, the human formed from the dust of the earth. That was on the sixth day. Into us he has breathed his life, filling the third-day soil with a new and unique kind of life. Because of this forming and filling, formed by God’s hand and filled with God’s Spirit-Breath, we are alive. We who are formed and filled on the sixth day have our origins in the third day.

And so it is written, “On the third day he rose again…”. The Savior-Seed fell into the ground and died, rising again from the darkness of death - as all seeds do - on the third day. He rose in unquenchable, unconquerable life, his seed within him, perpetually bearing fruit and creating a harvest of life to cover the earth. You are that fruit, and Christ is within you, so much so that even when we die we live. No wonder he rose from the dead on the third day and did so ‘in a garden’.

I kneel in my garden to weed the soil and nurture the tender shoots of a future harvest for which I hope. We kneel in prayer in the morning, the scent of the compost upon us, knowing the decomposition of our lives. But that pungent aroma also testifies to the power of the word and Spirit within us. We live because Christ lives in us - and the harvest will surely come, beautiful, satisfying, and full of glory. We will be raised from the dead on the last day of history by the One who already rose from the dead “on the third day.”