The beginning of fall: A covenantal sign?

Just last Sunday we who live in the northern hemisphere left summer behind and began the slow march through fall toward winter. For us here in Dallas it’s hard to appreciate the significance of the change. It’s still in the 90’s during the day and nights cool off only to the 70’s. Yet, the slight change in the air and shortening of the days will only become more acute in the coming weeks.

While the change from summer to fall is generally not something that generates too much interest, it would be wrong to say that it is ignored. Already the stores are pushing Halloween candy as well as fall and winter clothing. People have put up season specific yard decorations, and the football season and baseball playoffs are in full swing. Yet there is nothing dramatic about these changes. We expected them. They are so normal and so automatic that we don’t give any thought that things could be any different. Herein, however, lies the significance. In the covenant that God made with Noah following the flood, He not only promised not to destroy the earth again with a flood (Gen 8:21) but also to maintain the stability of the world order:

“While the earth remains,
seedtime and harvest,
and cold and heat,
and summer and winter,
and day and night shall not cease” (Gen 8:22).

According to this passage, the predictable change of the seasons and even the rising and setting of the sun each day affirms that God keeps His covenant with humankind—withholding for a while longer His judgment and extending His grace.
The fact that we take the dependability of the change of seasons for granted seems to only underscore the extent of that grace.

While some want to find religious significance in the changing of the seasons, I suggest that Christians should find covenantal significance. God keeps His promises. The stability of the world order confirms that. Yet, if He keeps this promise, He will also keep the promise to judge the world again. This makes the change of seasons another opportunity to assess our priorities and lives before him, not unlike the admonishment from 2 Pet 3:11-12a:

“Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God . . . .”