Fall’s Sad Beauty

I’ve wanted to write a post about fall for a long time. Why? Because fall is such an evocative season. Nothing provokes more response from us than the changing of the foliage, an annual testimony to the presence of great beauty in our world. Tourists travel, locals marvel, all the world stops for a time to take in the canvas of nature.

How ironic it is, then, that leaves descend to the soil at their aesthetic height. Once the processes of nature clothe them in vibrancy, the leaves fall. At their peak, they bid farewell to their roots and die. From there, they become fodder for broken rakes and flushed faces, relegated to piles clustered around browning lawns. Worse yet, they fall into the road, where tires muddy them. Their roots lost, their beauty obscured, they decompose. Slowly they become little pieces of nothing. Once disposed of, they are forgotten altogether. Winter’s frost and snow bury them from sight and mind. Beauty meets its end.

Isn’t this the pattern of life? The created order comes to its peak, only to plummet. Rise, fall, forgotten. I see this everywhere. And yet I see one who has overcome this sad movement. The Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, played this losing game and won. He was subjected to the code, to the crescendo and the fall, and yet He did the inconceivable: He broke the system. We await His return and the beginning of a season that does not pass when we will know Him as He is in the new creation. Then, we will gaze, awestruck, and the moment will endure.