Death & Rebirth

“Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

—John 12:24

Years ago, my friend Doug told me that the central image of the Christian faith is death and rebirth. I’d heard that before, but when he told me, I really thought about it for the first time. And I didn’t agree.

What I didn’t understand until much later is that he wasn’t speaking to me as a theologian or a pastor or an expert, but rather as a person whose heart had been broken and who had been brought back to life by the story God tells in all our lives. When you haven’t yet had your heart really broken, the gospel isn’t about death and rebirth. It’s about life and more life. It’s about hope and possibility and a brighter future. And it is, certainly, about those things.

But when you’ve faced some kind of death—the loss of someone you loved dearly, the failure of a dream, the fracture of a relationship—you start understanding that central metaphor. Rebirth and new life then become very, very important to you.

Now I know Doug was right. I know that death is real, and I trust that rebirth is real, too.