Beneath the Soil

A few summers ago, our daughter was showing her husband the highlights of Delco -- they had twenty minutes to kill. She took him to a local farmer's market, and returned with a plant (and her husband). It was a "Velvet Elvis." Having grown up in the '70s, and having admired such high-quality artwork as the velvet Elvis, the plant's name alone made it a hit -- never mind its beautiful purple flowers and its hearty, only-chemical-warfare-could-kill-this-thing nature. In the summer, Elvis resided on our deck, basking in the sunshine. When the air cooled, Elvis came indoors to sit by a sunny window and constantly shed its chaff all over the floor of my office. Elvis was colossal!

This spring, we sent Elvis back outside. He'd already begun to lose some leaves, but I was optimistic the warm air and direct sunlight would perk him right up. We had a pretty wet April, and Elvis was looking a little worse for wear. Summer's coming, right? He'll soak up that sunshine and be good as new. By now, most of his leaves had fallen, and his tiny, far-reaching branches were brittle and snapping off. But this summer has been rainy and humid like no other I recall. Grass is moldy, our backyard garden is lackluster. And Elvis? Well, Elvis suffered the ravages of this sauna in which we've been living. Eventually, no amount of pruning or pleading would bring him back. His thick branches shriveled to nothing and his roots withered and rotted. Elvis had left the building.

I'm studying Mark 11, in which Jesus curses the fruitless fig tree. Mark says Jesus cursed the tree one day, and by the next it had withered to nothing; Matthew gives his account, and we assume it means the fig tree withered before their eyes. Either way, it was fast -- miraculously fast. In Matthew's account, the disciples question Jesus specifically as to how this could have happened so quickly. But Mark gives an interesting detail: "they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots" (v. 20). From the roots.

Now, I'm no horticulturalist, but plants just don't wither from the root up; sure, trouble may begin there, but the signs of trouble -- the indicators we can first see -- occur further out, in leaves and fruit and stems. (There's a lesson there about sticking close to the One in whom you are "rooted," but that's for another day.) They saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. Maybe this was Mark's way of indicating the thorough decimation of this tree, or maybe it was not just a miracle of time but of order. After considering Elvis' slow, methodical decline from tip to root, it's obvious the withering of this fig tree was anomalous. It just doesn't happen that way...

...at least, not visibly. The things we see are indicators, usually, of what's going on inside, deep down below the soil. My plant-savvy husband believes Elvis' problems began with the soil; that cool nights and humid days led to constant saturation that rotted the roots, preventing the furthermost parts from receiving proper nutrition. Something we could not see, happening below the surface, that sickened and ultimately did Elvis in.

Like Israel. Like us sometimes. Fearful thoughts, eyes and minds permeated with junk television, false teaching, days without quiet time with God, "little" sins that "don't hurt anyone" -- they all lead to decay and sickness. To the day when our lack of fruit shows the world we are dead at the root. Maybe that was Mark's point; maybe he knew the things we see merely reflect the things going on within.

What is going on below the soil in your garden?