I am in my son’s back yard in Harrisonburg, VA, treating my grandson to his first Easter egg hunt. And in the midst of the garish hues of plastic eggs, I find these two sprigs of forsythia, one bound and one in glorious bloom.

Yellow is a burst, a blaze, a beckoning. It is celebratory. Audacious. Unafraid. It is not a color for blending in. If green is the true color of spring, yellow is its party hat.

Later, I study the photo I’ve captured. It suggests so much about the resurrection of Jesus. And ours. On the left is the bound before, as if constricted by graveclothes. On the right is the flowering of new life.

What will the new life promised by the resurrection be like? Surely, it will be more than just a continuation. It will be a transformation. We will not be resuming our earthly form as if being forced to put back on yesterday’s clothes. It will be a glorious existence unlike anything we can imagine. People speculate about what age we’ll appear in our new forms. This is because we cannot envision a body where age is irrelevant, where we can be wholly like ourselves and wholly other – unrestricted by our self-centered natures and decaying flesh, bathed in radiance, exuberantly the work of God.

I speculate. Only God truly knows.

But if He dresses the temporary plants in spring with such a superabundance of color, how much more he will enrobe us in his glory when the veil of this world is lifted. When we, with all of creation, are finally unbound.

When his Son is revealed in a burst, a blaze and a beckoning.

Glorious Lord, thank you for the richness of yellow. It is a generous gift of grace – a chromatic charisma – that hints at the glories you are waiting to reveal at the dawn of the appointed day. We are caught between the now and then, enjoying the beauty you have given and longing for the greater beauty it points to. But whether now or then, our response is the same. Our delight ignites our praise.