The Scent of Water

"For a tree has hope: though cut down, it can still be removed, and its shoots will not cease. Though its root grow old in the ground and its stock die in the dust, from the scent of water it flowers, and puts forth branches like a sapling. But a strong man dies defeated, man breathes his last, and where is he?" Job 14. 6 - 10 The Hebrew Bible, Robert Alter

As I read the lesson from Job appointed for today, I noticed "again for the first time" the conviction with which Job speaks about nature and its ability to prevail where man cannot. "For a tree has hope," he says, "and though cut down, it can still be removed, and its shoots will not cease."

But the line in the passage above that really hit me is

"from the scent of water it flowers, and puts forth branches like a sapling."

Job does not yet understand the miracle of resurrection in a human context though he longs to, but he clearly sees it in Creation...nature dies and is reborn. He uses nature as a metaphor for what he longs for. Again, however, "the scent of water" he suggests is all that nature offers to revive a bud and bring it back to life. A scent...just a smell or a fragrance of a clear odorless compound...can revive a stump and nurture it to reproduce again. Perhaps we have here a prophecy of what the coming of the Messiah will do. and if so, we have a glimpse into the power of the Love of God so that even a scent of Love can revive us...

And so I leave you with a question...what scent of Love revives you? and what scent of Love can we offer to one who feels laid low, expired or dead in the ground?