Dazzling bracts

When it comes to botanical structures, bracts are the ones we probably think of least often. In fact, I’ll venture a guess that the great bulk of humanity hasn’t given them even a single thought—or even knows what one is. Actually, until dogwood season this year, my bractish meditations had languished—ever since last year’s dogwood season.

Bract (n). a modified leaf associated with a flower or inflorescence of flowers.

Oh, that’s helpful—not! But a picture is always worth a thousand hackneyed expressions, so a glance at our dogwood photographs will give you the opportunity of seeing hundreds of colorful specimens.

Now tell me the truth. Aren’t you muttering, “You mean those pink things aren’t petals?” Don’t feel bad—we’re all guilty of falling into that botanical sin.

Going back to the definition, if the pink things are bracts, where are the “flowers or inflorescences of flowers”? Right in the middle, where, if the whole ensemble were a flower, we would expect to see stamens and pistils, the reproductive parts of a flower.

Now that we’re oriented, we see that each flower—whoops, inflorescence of a dozen or more flowers—is surrounded by four colorful bracts. The flowers themselves, as you can see, are greenish-yellowish and minimalist, each with four petals and in various stages of opening.

Why big, colorful bracts—or big colorful flower petals, for that matter? Billboards, of course, to attract pollinators. They must work. Otherwise, why would dogwoods go to the trouble of investing a tremendous amount of energy to construct them? Just imagine the number of energy-sapping mitotic cell divisions it takes to produce that display--and the biochemical pathways necessary to produce the red pigment molecules.

Actually, wild dogwood, Cornus florida, usually has white, non-pigmented bracts. But, according to my favorite botany teacher, there was a mutation to a tree near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania that somehow produced the pink color. And all pink dogwoods are offspring of that tree. I have often wondered how a mutation could produce a complex red pigment where there was none before, since mutations always destroy information rather than adding to it. But who am I to disagree with Dr. Kuhnen? Nobody messes with Dr. Kuhnen. But then again, maybe she has rethought the matter by now. And dogwoods do know how to make red pigments for their fruit. So I’ll just keep cogitating on the matter.

At any rate, breeders, since then, have produced nearly twenty different cultivars from the wild types. I’m guessing our pictured specimens are “Amerika Touch-o-Pink.” Some wise nurseryman will no doubt show me up.

Now we should deal seriously with stories you will find all around the internet (do a Google search and you will find them—look for “The Legend of the Dogwood” or such) about how the rough notches in the dogwood bracts, often tinged with brown, represent the nail holes in Christ’s cross—and that Jesus was crucified on a cross made from a dogwood—and that dogwood trees were once the size of oaks—and that since then, dogwoods, out of deference to Christ’s sacrifice, have become only small understory trees….

Now hold on there. I enjoy a fable or good story as much as anyone. They’ve been around almost forever. Old Aesop wrote a ton of enjoyable ones (although most of them seem to have been real downers. )

But when it comes to the Cross of Christ, fables and legends are out. That Cross and the event that took place on it are real history—momentous history! The Cross, and the subsequent resurrection, represent the turning point of human history (look at the calendar). Any attempt to fictionalize the Crucifixion, during which the Sinless Son of God took upon Himself the sins of His elect people, is so horridly blasphemous as to be unthinkable. The Crucifixion was not a pretty event and should not be turned into a pretty story. But the good news of substitutionary atonement is pretty—very pretty! (II Cor. 5:21).

Christ may not have died on a dogwood—but He did create the dogwood—bracts and all. Think about THAT! (John 1:3)

Soli Deo Gloria

A lily is never quite enough!

In 1919, a World War I soldier brought a suitcase full of big flower bulbs home to Oregon and passed them out to his friends. They grew them. They liked the sweet smelling, pure white lilies and started cultivating them. The climate of the Oregon coast proved ideal for growing Lilium longiflorum, and by 1945 there were more than a thousand Easter lily growers up and down the west coast.

But it takes a lot of work and patience to grow the bulbs—three years of planting, culling, separating, fertilizing, replanting—not to mention forcing them to bloom at just the right time of year. So now, only about ten commercial growers produce most of the lilies that pop up in stores and nurseries for sale at Easter time.

These lilies have become almost synonymous with Easter, along with bunnies and eggs. While those symbols are of pagan origin, as is the name Easter (we should be calling it Resurrection Day), the pure white lily can at least offer some imperfect analogies to the meaning of Passion Week, the turning point in human history.

Let’s begin with the color—pure white. The lily’s whiteness comes from the refraction of light within its cells, which act as miniature lenses. But notice, from our photographs, that without the proper lighting, the blossom may appear dingy and brownish. In fact, nothing can compare with Christ’s pure, holy whiteness. As Christians, we are robed in the white robes of Christ’s righteousness, not our own; and the dinginess of our old fallen human nature lurks within until, by His grace, we are transformed into His likeness.

How about the flower’s three-part structure? As a monocot, the lily has its parts in threes or multiples of three. I suppose we can make an analogy to the mystery of the Trinity—but again, it would be an pitifully imperfect one. Any little illustration of the Trinity falls miserably short. We use little diagrams and comparisons, simply because our puny human minds cannot embrace the concept of Holy God, one in being and essence, three in persons—let alone the hypostatic union: Jesus Christ as fully God and fully man, one in person. We believe in God on the high order of Trinity because His Word teaches it in so many ways.

As I write, here in my “man cave”, the fragrance of the Easter lily wafts in from the living room. The flowers are pumping out complex volatile molecules called terpenoids, their odor now diffusing throughout space. It’s a pleasant perfume, but one plant is quite enough for my home. Too many of these flowers in a closed space can produce so much of the stuff that the atmosphere can become oppressive and sickening. We can make a pretty good analogy here to the Gospel, the true Gospel (not the weak, inoffensive substitute preached in so many churches today) of the birth, death, burial and resurrection of Christ, as it is spread throughout the world. As the Apostle Paul said in II Corinthians 2: 15-16, “For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life.” The true Gospel is heavenly sweetness to the ears of the believer, but an offense to those who refuse its message.

Easter lilies do not naturally bloom at Easter. They must be induced to bloom by artificially chilling the bulbs and altering day/night cycles. But Easter is perfectly timed. Of our Christian holidays, Easter is the one that is celebrated at the right time of year, coinciding as it does with Passover. Christ is our Passover. The first communion meal was a Passover meal. All aspects of the Passion Week were perfectly timed. All the actors in the original “Passion Play” did exactly what they were supposed to do, when they were foreordained to do it. There was no adlibbing. There were no accidents. Jesus’ death was not a fortuitous accident. It was all an integral part of God’s magnificent plan of the salvation of His people.

We said that it takes a lot of work to grow Easter lilies. Think of how much work by how many people must be involved from the time of the original planting of bulbs to the delivery of the blooming plants to nursery or store. But the work of salvation is by One and One alone! God did the work in the person of Christ—alone! Christians work because they are saved—not to achieve salvation. Sadly, all other religions, including some that claim to be Christian, insist that we must cooperate with God to achieve salvation. They present Easter lily gospels—hard work to produce short-lived plants that must be planted and worked for, year after year. Christ died once—only once—a sacrifice that propitiated God’s holy wrath—perfectly—for those who would believe.

In addition to the one Easter lily on my coffee table, there are a few silk flower arrangements here and there, mainly because I am too lazy to take care of real houseplants. So the substitutes provide some labor-free color around the place. But it would be an insult to use these dust collectors as an analogy of our True Substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. Substitutionary Atonement is a big, fancy term, but it is one of the most important ones going! Christ died, not as a mere example for us to follow and not as an example of suffering, but in the place of—instead of—those who would believe. He is the true substitute! We sinners deserve nothing but death and eternal misery. By pure grace, because of Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice, we have life instead!

And finally, let’s reflect on resurrection—what Easter is all about. The Easter lily may provide us with an imperfect analogy. After all, a really dead looking lily bulb is buried and in due time comes to life. But of course, the bulb wasn’t really dead at all, but merely in a dormant state. The sinless Son of God, Jesus, having been crucified, was dead—really dead, the consequence of His taking our sin—all of it—upon Himself on the cross. And any earthly analogy to that truth is so inadequate that it becomes idolatrous—even blasphemous—to think such a thing. His was not a mere temporary resuscitation. It was resurrection from death to everlasting life. He is risen. He is risen indeed!

So let us take the Easter lily for what it is, a fantastically complex creation, given to us as a tiny reminder of God’s unfathomable grace—but totally inadequate (as is this puny essay) as a representation of the Gospel.

I am posting this near the end of Resurrection Day (in the eastern United States) so that we may reflect on all that we did and didn’t do to honor Him on this, the commemoration of the most important weekend in human history. Most certainly we didn’t—nor could we ever—do enough. That’s why we need The Savior!

Soli Deo Gloria