My Earthly Father's Daffodils

One-Month Reminders of the Hope of the Resurrection

Here’s the first full bloom from my father’s daffodils he planted in his yard.

My father, Ted Wayne Richey, went to be with the Lord one month ago today. At his funeral, I was able to eulogize his life. One thing I mentioned was that my father had a practical theological training in the rhythms of life and how the Lord has ordered things for us—from death comes life. Ultimately, Jesus’ death and resurrection secures for us the same hope.

But in the here and now, we are still surrounded by the fact that life comes from death. We see this paradox all throughout the scripture. The person who wants to be first must be last. The person who wants to follow Jesus must take up his cross. He must die to himself and live to Christ. My father had his hands in the dirt in a very present reminder of how life comes from death. As was mentioned at his service, not long before he got sick, he planted over nine hundred (yes; you read that right) daffodil bulbs in and around the yard of their house at Caney Lake. After he died, I couldn’t help but think about the imagery and symbolism of hope that those flowers and all plants provide to us if we only have eyes to see.

Me, my brother, and my mother on the day we planted my father into the resurrection garden that is a cemetery. (Photo credit: Kelsey Richey)

Four days after my father died, we planted his body in the ground, a seed of sorts for the upcoming resurrection. While his spirit is present with the Father, the shell that we touched and saw and hugged was planted, awaiting a good bit of watering and the ultimate bursting forth on the last day. Returning to those daffodil bulbs… a week or so ago, they began to burst forth, and now a few of them have started to flower. They provide a finite, seemingly mundane reminder of the great hope that we all have in Christ Jesus.

As I said in his eulogy, my father would not likely have sat you down and explained the symbolism of planting seeds and flowers. But, I firmly believe that his faith was strengthened because he spent so much time planting and watering earthly seeds. These things formed him, and we should be formed by them as well. We should be encouraged and thankful. We should not be afraid to die and give of ourselves. We should be willing to lay down our lives in miniature every day so that the name of Christ may be exalted. We should ask the Lord to give us eyes to notice and rejoice at all the ways he puts little pictures of his goodness in creation, be they daffodils or something altogether different.

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 (ESV)

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.  For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.