For Everything There Is a Season

For Everything There Is a Season.  Although the marquee outside the Parks and Recreation Building still reads, “Happy Fall, Y’all!” and although it is only March 1^st, it is basically springtime. The daffodils are now sharing space with the tulips. A yellow-green dusting of pollen covers everything, even my eyeballs. An ice storm, if one were to kick up in March, would kill or maim everything botanical in its path. But for now, March is marvelous.

It is as true this year as in any year, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Eccles. 3:1). Apparently, in addition to a season for tulips, there is also a season for war. Not merely the unpredictable oscillation between “a time for war, and a time and peace” (vs. 8), but war has a predictable season, too. March means the beginning of war season for the ancients, as regular as tax season for the moderns, as anticipated as tulip season for the horticulturalists.

For the most part, ancient men would plant their fields, kiss their wives, sharpen their weapons, and march to war every March. They would fight the enemies until October when they (also the enemies) would return home, kiss their wives, store their weapons, bring in the harvest, and take a long-winter’s nap. For some reason, the regularity of war season is mildly humorous, like the dogs and the cats in the old cartoons, punching their timecards side-by-side in the morning, fighting tooth-and-nail all day until it was time to clock out again in the evening when they would wish each other a good night. See you later, Hal. You, too, Frank.

It is not a coincidence that March honors Mars, the Roman god of war, enshrined in the third month’s very name. It is also not a coincidence that Russia and Ukraine, having taken a break from war for the winter, are back at it again this March.

Ironically, the ones who divert from the war path as easily get churned up in war’s machinery. “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel … but David remained at Jerusalem” (2 Sam. 11:1). King David, curiously, declined to follow the war calendar and quickly fell into serious trouble with his lieutenant’s wife, Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11:4)—since all the other men were at war.

But before David’s infamous departure from the well-established season of war, apparently before he was coronated but after he was anointed as Israel’s king, he wrote about war and peace from a different point of view. He wrote about some people who not only went to war but who developed an appetite for war. “Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war” (Psa. 120:6-7). Declaring for the side of peace, David had to go frequently into war. Though his hands were bloody out of necessity, his heart was ever eager for peace.

So, March marches in as it ever has, but Mars is not in command, nor has he ever been. This is not the season of war anymore. This is the season of redemption now. We follow a different Warrior to a better battlefield. The cross was the war that really will end all wars.