Pomegranates & Coal
During the Christmas season, the stores are filled with pomegranates. When I was a child, Santa used to put one big juicy pomegranate in my stocking…along with a piece of coal. I think that the coal was to remind me that no matter how hard I worked, no matter how long I worked, and no matter how badly I wanted to do things right, I would inevitably mess up. That being the case, the coal was to remind me that I always had something to confess, something from which to turn. I tell you that my life has been filled with so much turning that I am beginning to feel like a tornado. What about you?
The unusual fruit of pomegranate, besides being very tasty, seemed to provide a sign of hope missing in the piece of coal. Though I didn’t know it at the time, it was an important symbol to Old Testament Israel. (Ex 28:34, Nu 13:23, De 8:8, 1 Kg 7:18) First, the seeds stood as a reminder that we are really never alone, no matter how much we may feel like it; it’s all been done before; someone else has already walked the road you’re on. The sections within the pomegranate were a reminder of the fertility of the twelve tribes, which lived under the one promise of God’s salvation, symbolized by the rind. In the early church the red juice symbolized Christ’s love and the blood of the martyrs. As a young boy, all I knew was that it tasted really good, and we only had one a year at Christmas. That convinced me that Santa brought them, and where he got them, I never questioned.
Within a few weeks of Christmas, the pomegranates disappear from the store shelves. And coal is harder to find than hens’ teeth. Still, the message of hope and redemption, and the constant need for confession and repentance, remain. If there is a resolution worth keeping, this is it; for it is the very essence of what it means to be Christian. And the new year is as good a place as any to begin again. Merry Christ-mas and a Joy Filled New Year. Father Bill Myrick
