It’s that time of year when everything is lush and green. The sun is bright, the sky is blue, temperatures are high, and if you are very, very quiet you can almost hear the corn growing. The stalks in my neighbor’s field are already far above my head and, as I look out across Kinship Radioland on a Sunday drive, I can see the first tassels of summer peaking out in all their glory.
For me, the tassels signal mid-summer. This is the time we all longed for back in February and March (and April for that matter) when winter seemed it would never end. This is the time when fresh cucumbers and dill and green onions come out of the garden. The tassels mean soon there will be tomatoes for BLTs, and sweet corn, and all those wonderful foods of summer.
Technically, those tassels are the male flower of the corn plant. The female flower is the ear. When mature, a single corn plant will produce only one ear, but it will have between 500 and 1000 kernels on that ear.
As I was listening to Kinship Radio on Monday, Dr. Tony Evans was talking about God’s dwelling place. His first dwelling place is the throne room of heaven. Later, He came and walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Then, He directed Moses to build a portable tabernacle and He dwelt, in all His shekinah glory, in the Holy of Holies. Still later, Solomon built Him a temple in Jerusalem, also with a Holy of Holies, which was destroyed and then rebuilt.
Dr Evan’s point was that today, God’s temple is in us. His Holy Spirit lives in us!
In ancient days, and even today, Jews wear the tallit gadol (prayer shawl) with tassels called tzitzit. There are four tassels on the shawl, one attached to each corner, and they are designed to remind them of the law. The word, “tzitzit” is derived from another Hebrew word, “nitzah,” which means “budding flower.”
As Dr. Evans talked about God’s dwelling place in us while I was driving past fields of tasseling corn, it reminded me that Jesus came at just the right time. The Bible says He came “in the fullness of time.” Just as the corn knows when it should tassel to produce fruit, Jesus came while we were still sinners, to produce the harvest of souls that would plant the seeds of the Gospel all over the world. And those souls would produce fruit and plant more kernels, which would yield a harvest in their due time. And so on and so on –and the world was forever changed.
The difference, of course, is that the tassels of the living corn plant point up to God while the tassels of the law on the prayer shawl hang down.
The budding flower of the corn plant is a good reminder that a great and bountiful harvest is coming soon and that we should be fruitful.
Today’s Praise
Galatians 4:4-7
“But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” (NKJV)