Christmas Catcus Lessons

 As most of you most likely already know, the plant in the picture above is called a Christmas Cactus.  It was blooming for me around Christmas of last year.  In fact, if my memory is correct; I bought this plant around that time of year.  For several months, however, it has not bloomed at all.  The leaves were healthy and green, but there were no blossoms. 

Now I understand that the Christmas Cactus also sometimes blooms around Easter.  That is just what happened this year.  A few days before Easter it started to get blossoms on it, and then one day it produced the beautiful flower you see in the picture.

As a person who does not particularly have a green thumb, I was excited about this development and even posted it on my Facebook page.  Yet then I thought about the spiritual lessons from this.  When Jesus came to this earth as a baby in a manger that was a glorious day for mankind.  There was now the promise of new life for believers.  When Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins and then rose again to prove that He had won over sin and death, however, that new life and blssoming of eternal hope was sealed and accomplished.

Through all those years between when Adam and Eve sinned until Jesus came to this earth to accomplish His work of salvation, God's people had to watch and wait for that day of salvation. In anticipation of that day Isaiah 35:1 says,"The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom."  Did God's people ever grow weary looking for that salvation to come?  Then one day it happened!  Some did not believe and accept Jesus, the Savior, and His salvation when it did come.  But for those who did accept that salvation it brought joy, new life, and blossoming in their lives!

Now some day Jesus will return to this earth a second time.  Only this time He will come back as a King of kings on the clouds of glory.  It took my plant a long time to blossom a second time.  So Jesus' second coming may seem like a long time in coming, but one day it too will happen!  You and I may become weary of the trials of this life, but Jesus is coming back to bring His children to Himself. As the song says, "What a day that will be when my Jesus I shall see"!