“FEAR FACTOR OPENS NEW MARKET FOR SEEDS” That headline two days ago caught my eye. What in the world do seeds have to do with fear? I read on. “The news is unquestionably frightening: political turmoil at home and abroad; worries over oil, gas, and food prices; earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear meltdowns . . . And that’s just in the last few months. Marketers are on high alert. Doomsday is nigh! they shout online and on late-night TV as they hype ‘survivalist seed banks’ and ‘apocalypse gardens’ to the nervous and fearful. More than a dozen companies offer deals of up to 94,000 vegetable seeds, stored in tightly sealed buckets and ‘ammo boxes,’ that will feed a family of four for years or decades” (http://articles.philly.com/2011-04-18/news/29443489_1_vegetable-seeds-lettuce-plant-garden). Can you believe it? You can now order 94,000 vegetable seeds to pack away in your basement or bottom drawer in the event of an emergency! Just in case. Are people buying? “‘It’s going well, a little too well right now. We didn’t really anticipate that we’d get busier every time something happens,’ says Dustin Merritt, co-owner of Emergencyseedbank.com in American Fork, Utah.” In fact, Merritt claims that his company is doing as much business now per month as it did in three months last year. Not everybody’s a believer, of course. “If disaster struck, how would anyone be able to even start a garden, let alone keep one going for 10 or 20 years?” And besides, as one master-gardener quipped, “You don’t need to buy thousands of seeds unless you’re going to feed the whole country.” The point? Like the rest of the world, Americans are easily spooked. And the spate of bad news of late has jacked the profits of survivalist sales. But are 94,000 seeds really going to save us? But on this Passion weekend when Christendom relives the explosive story of Jesus’ resurrection 2000 years ago, the juxtaposed ideas of seed and fear may not be as farfetched as we think. For in that garden tomb outside Jerusalem’s walls the divine Seed was buried behind a stone door. Just one Seed. But in that Seed the survivalist hopes of an entire race were pinned. For if that buried Seed were to rise from the earth—alive and eternal—then the survival, the salvation of the human race would be assured, and fear—the endemic reality of life on this rebel planet—would be conquered. And so it was that in the angel’s cry, “He is not here—He is risen!”, the triumph of the Seed and the salvation of the world were pronounced. And so it is that we gather to celebrate the Risen Christ every time we worship! Then ponder the words of the poet, John M. C. Crum, in this paean of praise for our Savior Seed: Now the green blade rises from the buried grain Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain Love lives again, that with the dead has been Love is come again like wheat arising green. In the grave they laid Him, love by hatred slain Thinking that He would never wake again Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen Love is coming again like wheat arising green. Forth He came in triumph, like the risen grain He that for three days in the grave had lain Raised from the dead, my living Lord is seen Love is come again like wheat arising green. When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain Your touch can call us back to life again Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been Love is coming again like wheat arising green.