(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Pomegranates and Your Life”, originally shared on September 23, 2021. It was the 151st video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
I’ve read that the pomegranate primarily
stands for two things in the Bible: fertility and eternal life. Fertility may
mean abundant food or a long line of descendants, but eventually both will die
out, right? Eternity is about living forever. Or is it? What does fertility
have to do with eternal life? Today, we’re going to find out from a
pomegranate.
We have a pomegranate tree in our back yard.
The tree was a gift from Sally’s mother, as a symbol used in Sally’s
ordination, when it was just a small bush. It grew up and then fell over one
winter when we had a lot of rain. Remember those winters?
Enough of its roots remained in the ground, however, that it continued
to grow and flourish. Today, it’s tall enough that we have to stand on the
patio roof and use a fruit picking pole to grab the fruit at the top of the
tree. But we can still find fruit on the
outer edges of its lower branches, at least the fruit that the squirrels,
possums, raccoons and who-knows-what-elses that parade through our back yard
don’t devour.
The pomegranate is mentioned many times in the Bible, including:
In the romantic and provocative poetry of the Song of Solomon,
where we read in 8:2 of its juice as a refreshing beverage:
2 I would lead you and bring you
into the house of my mother,
and into the chamber of the one who
bore me.
I would give you spiced wine to
drink,
the juice of my pomegranates.
Moses reminds the people Israel, at the end of their slavery in Egypt
and their desert wanderings, of the goodness of the land that God had given them
as their inheritance forever, including the verses of Deuteronomy 8:7-8,
7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a
good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters
welling up in valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat
and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and
honey,
As a decoration, it was declared in Exodus 28:33-34 to be used on
the hems of the robes of the Temple priests:
33 On its lower hem you shall make
pomegranates of blue, purple, and crimson yarns, all around the lower hem, with
bells of gold between them all around— 34 a golden
bell and a pomegranate alternating all around the lower hem of the robe.
And, the pomegranates were carved into the columns and beams of the
Temple built by Solomon, as we read in 1 Kings 7:18-20:
18 He made the columns with two rows
around each latticework to cover the capitals that were above the pomegranates;
he did the same with the other capital. 19 Now the
capitals that were on the tops of the pillars in the vestibule were of
lily-work, four cubits high. 20 The capitals were
on the two pillars and also above the rounded projection that was beside the
latticework; there were two hundred pomegranates in rows all around; and so
with the other capital.
The mature red rind of the pomegranate was used for medicine, as well as
for red dye and for tanning leather.
I’ve read that, as a symbol, the pomegranate meant two seemingly
different things: fertility and eternal life.
It’s easy to see why the pomegranate might be seen as a sign of
fertility. Many stems grow from the base of the tree. You cut pomegranate fruit
open, and it’s filled with seeds.
There is one tradition that says that there can be 613 seeds in a mature
pomegranate and there are 613 laws in the Torah.
When I studied in Israel in college our group was shown a cactus fruit
that was called a sabra. Native born Israelis were also called Sabras because,
like the fruit, they were spiky on the outside but sweet on the inside.
Similarly, one theory of the pomegranate as a symbol is that the pomegranate
represents Israel, tough and beaten-up on the outside but a sweet blessing from
the inside.
Some have said that the fact that there is no flesh inside, only seeds,
is a reminder that our purpose is to sow the seeds God has given us, that we
chiefly live to serve others and not for ourselves.
But why eternal life?
I think that it’s because “eternal life” doesn’t start when we die, or
when we’re raised. Eternal life begins when we are saved, when our hearts are
opened by God and we receive the gift of eternal salvation in the gifts of faith
and what happens to us in our baptism.
But even that doesn’t fully describe what we mean when we speak of
eternity.
Knowing God is an expression the abundant life Jesus came so that we
might have in quality as well as in quantity what he has given us, as he says in
John 10:10,
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and
destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Eternal life speaks to our quality of life, as well as to its quantity.
We become a new Creation when we are saved. We are born again. Jesus said, in
the gospel of John, chapter 17, verse 3 in his prayer on the night he
was betrayed:
3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you,
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
This is made possible only by the cross. It is where we most clearly see
God and God’s desire for the world. The red of a broken pomegranate can be seen
as the blood of Jesus, who was broken, and his blood poured out for the sake of
the world. Its sweetness, the sweetness of heaven. In fact, pomegranate seeds
are set out in a dish at memorial services in some cultures as a reminder of
the sweetness of heaven.
I used to think that I was giving our pomegranate tree too much water
when the pomegranates cracked open. Then I found out that mature pomegranates
will often burst open by themselves. This is how they naturally reproduce.
The seeds can be seen as the reign of God, and we as the disciples of
the Sower, sowing seeds that come as the result of God’s work through the lives
of the hundreds of seed sowers who have come before us.
Likewise, a pomegranate has a crown at the top and is filled with
jewel-like seeds. The salvation that comes by faith through God’s grace is
described as a crown with jewels in the Bible. What do we do with our crowns?
We don’t keep them, like a merit badge sash, when we enter heaven. We cast them
to the feet of Jesus. We live to give ourselves away, now and forever.
Pomegranate seeds can describe the people of the Church. They grow and
reproduce.
We live our gifted lives as Christians in response to Jesus, in
gratitude for our salvation, in sharing the good news.
We are at a point in the pandemic where we don’t know if the pre-pandemic
trends of decline will continue in most churches, or if the pent-up desire for
genuine community will result in growth.
What we do know is that the life of the Christian faith is found both in
quality and quantity. The one thing that the people we can reach will not
receive from other agents is Jesus. Christian communities are the only place
where the name of Jesus is named and where people come to a living
transformational saving relationship with God in the name of Jesus Christ.
Jesus is who we point to in a hurting world.
May we be like the pomegranate and bear the fruit of the seeds God has made of us, and may the Church continue to grow, to God’s glory.
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