Flowers are not perfect. They have flaws. They have bent or missing petals and unsightly or squished leaves. They can have unusual shapes and crooked, broken or punctured stems. Or be discoloured due to disease, exposure to cold or heat, or water damage. Drooping or loose heads are another problem.
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A florist takes care to minimize damage, hide flaws, and remove unattractive elements but that doesn’t change the fact that flowers are not perfect. In fact, they are dead. Or at least on their way to being dead. They may look alive and fresh but the reality is that as soon as they were cut from the plant, they began to die. Putting them in water can prolong their life but it cannot save them from the inevitable. They will shrivel, turn brown, dry up and die. Unless this happens too quickly, we probably don’t think much about it since that is what we expect from cut flowers. But if we pay attention, the lesson of the cut flower is a harsh wakeup call. It is a reminder that we are all flawed and imperfect. And like a rose cut from the plant, we are in the process of dying.
No matter how good we try to make ourselves look, no matter how hard we try to minimize the damage or hide our defects so that others don’t see them, we are all broken, flawed and imperfect. Our imperfections look like uncontrolled anger that lashes out with harsh words against someone. It looks like frustrated impatience that overlooks the needs of others, self-centered and selfish behavior that tramples over someone else, lies that hide the truth, pride that sees itself as more important, lust that objectifies another, or bitterness that refuses to let go and forgive. It is the ugly side of ourselves that we would rather not admit is there but, at the same time, are keenly aware of.
Like flowers, some of these imperfections are a result of rough handling. External influences have shaped us and left us damaged and broken. But other imperfections are deeper and more inherently part of us. They are part of our human nature and not just mistakes or unhappy accidents. I’m talking about the part of us that is in outright rebellion against God. It is the part of us that says, “I don’t need you, God.” “I can decide for myself what is right for me.” “I know this isn’t what you want but I’m going to do this my way anyway.” The Bible calls this ugliness sin, something we don’t like to talk about. But it is the human condition and it cuts us off from God.
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The book of Genesis recounts how sin entered our world and the effect it had not only on humanity but on all creation. God created humanity to partner with him in establishing the earth as a place that reveals God’s beauty and he gave humanity all the resources they would need to live and work to that end. At the same time, he also established one simple restriction. Something that, for their own good, he didn’t want them to do. And he warned them that if they went ahead and did it anyway, they would die. Instead of taking God at his word trusting that God had their best interests at heart and obeying him, humanity chose to listen to and believe the lie that God was holding out on them and preventing them from becoming like him. So, they rebelled against God and did the very thing he asked them not to do. They decided for themselves what was right and wrong, and rejected God’s authority over them. In effect, they cut themselves off from God and in doing so, cut themselves off from the very source of life. And so, they began to die. Their rebellion not only cut them off from God but it also destroyed their relationships with each other, with the rest of the created world and even with themselves. And as a result, deep brokenness and corruption (in other words, sin) infects us all and we share the same inevitable consequence - death.
This sobering lesson from the flower shop reminds us of our fragile state and our need for rescue. Fortunately, here is where the analogy of the flower ends. While there’s nothing to be done about the inevitable death of a cut flower, there is hope for humanity. Death does not have to be the end of the story. God, in his love and mercy, has worked out a way to graft us back into the source of life. He did this by taking on sin and death himself and overcoming it on our behalf so that we can once again enjoy relationship with him as he intended. The question is, will we stop walking towards death and instead turn to him to find life?