“The ground will grow thorns and weeds for you.” Genesis 3:18 NCV
In February, in a desperate attempt to pretend spring had arrived, I dug up moss and brought it indoors, tucking in a few Lenten roses that had begun to bloom. There was too much gray everywhere: gray bark, gray sky, gray squirrels. I was hungry for color and for spring. I set the plot of moss in a silver bowl, draping it over a wet floral block so the underside would stay moist. My friend Mary Johnson once grew moss indoors for months, so I used her trick for keeping it alive by spraying it frequently with water.
In the weeks since putting it in the middle of the dining table, the mossy pad has been a base for mounds of camellias, a jonquil, tiny grape hyacinths, and a few azalea blooms that opened early, thinking spring had come. The old shrubs should have known better. When freezing temperatures roared back, the lipstick red petals turned a wrinkly ash brown.
The most surprising act of nature, though, has occurred in the moss itself. Miniature weeds have popped up all over the place—clover, ragweed, and henbit. Since I dug it up from a spot in the forest, the seeds must have blown there from a distance. With warmth and moisture indoors, they started growing. I’ve marveled that tiny weeds could have such strong roots—when I tug on a half-inch spike, the moss heaves. Miniature weeding is the sort of job for a gnome, and in the photo above you see one with his red bucket, placed there by me in a moment of wishful thinking.
A nicely weeded garden or landscape proves that humans are in the vicinity. By contrast, an unkempt yard is a bad sign. Is the homeowner sick? Out of town? Negligent? We instinctively know that weeds indicate something has gone wrong. Maybe this intuition can be traced to the Fall, for thorns and weeds are the result of God’s curse on the ground. He told Adam, “You will have to struggle to grow enough food,” God said (Genesis 3:17 CEV).
Christ employed this negative connotation in a parable. A man planted good seed in his field, “but while people were sleeping, his enemy came, sowed weeds among the wheat, and left” (Matthew 13:25 HCSV). As the plants grew, the farmer left the weeds alone; uprooting them would harm the wheat.
The field, Christ explained later to his disciples, represents the world. “The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels” (Matthew 13:38-39 HCSB). Weeds are the Devil’s sons—not exactly a nuanced metaphor.
Sin infiltrates the most wonderful places, our best real estate. I think about my own heart. Like the moss, it seems to magically produce weeds without effort. Have you ever spent time with someone and found yourself thinking critical thoughts? Or received a gift and wished you’d been given something else? Or inwardly complained when something doesn’t go according to plan? Me too. Weeds, weeds, weeds.
Many people think that sin is caused by something outside of them. I’ve often heard these remarkable words: “I know I have a good heart” or “she has a good heart.” Perhaps it’s a sign of how far our culture has drifted from biblical literacy. To the contrary, there are no good hearts. “No one is good except God alone,” Christ told the rich young ruler (Luke 18:19 NIV). Therefore we don’t need to be saved from outside influences as much as from our inherent desire to sin. Once in All Souls Church in London I heard John Stott call Christianity a “rescue operation.” We need to be rescued from ourselves.
James wrote that we’re not tempted by external lures, but by our own desires. “Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away” (James 1:14 NLV). Like seeds in the moss, the desire to sin is already inside of us, and it will germinate under the right conditions. When it comes to life and pokes out of the soil, it’s time for us to pay attention and start weeding. Otherwise, it grows and goes through its life cycle. The result, James explains, is death. “When sin completes its work, it brings death” (v.15). I’ve seen this happen in myself. If I feel justified in judging someone (I don’t mean discerning an error, but judging with a self-righteous attitude), I begin to find more things wrong with them. Eventually I can hardly tolerate being in their presence. My heart hardens. Death has struck.
The solution isn’t self-improvement but repentance. “Create in me a clean heart,” David cried after a major moral failure (adultery, murder, and deceit, see Psalm 51:10). By admitting what’s going on inside of us and agreeing with God that we’ve taken a wrong turn, our hearts make room for Christ. “I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts,” Paul wrote his friends in Ephesus, “living within you as you trust in him” (Ephesians 3:17 TLB). Christ gives us the power to root out the most persistent weeds; his presence changes our ecosystem. “His divine power,” Peter wrote, “has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). That includes the power to weed.
Weeding my little plot of moss, which only came into the house because of a longing for something green and alive, has caused me to meditate on these biblical truths. When we flourish, weeds grow. God initiates their removal. Sometimes the roots are strong, and we heave with resistance. But the process continues.
One day it will end, and in the twinkling of an eye we will become immortal. Those troublesome seeds of sin will be gone, for Christ will claim his victory over Death, ridding us of thorns and thistles. The God who once walked in Eden in the cool of the day will make a new earth for us. In that place, the Bible says, “there will be no more death, suffering, crying, or pain” (Revelation 21:4 CEV). And no more weeding.