DAILY DEVOTIONAL – February 22, 2021
“More than Melons”
Prayer: Lord Jesus, as we follow you to the cross this Lenten season, we confess that You alone are where we find our value and worth in the eyes of God. Draw us ever closer to You through Your Word. Amen.
Scripture: Ephesians 5:25-27
Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Devotional – “More than Melons”
Especially during the hot summer months, certain fruits can be particularly refreshing. Watermelons, honeydew melons, and cantaloupe melons are probably among the most popular in the US. One of my grandparents’ favorite summer lunch meals was a half of a cantaloupe with some sugar sprinkled on top. My grandparents were also very frugal and thrifty, so I can assure you if they lived in Japan, they would have found a different refreshing summer meal.
According to Business Insider magazine, back in May of 2019 a pair of high-end Japanese melons (of a similar variety to the cantaloupes and honeydews you and I see in our local supermarket) sold at auction for 5,000,000 yen. That is over $45,000 in US currency.
Melons are grown up and down Japan, and they’re serious business. The fruit isn’t traditionally something you’d pick up as a snack in Japan, but is a luxury that often plays a big part in Japan’s gift-giving culture. And they’re not just admired for their taste, but for their looks as well. Crown melons are one of the most renowned varieties. Unlike the $5 mass-produced melons you’re likely to come across in a Western supermarket, crown melons take constant care and attention to grow.
This work is all done entirely by hand, and it isn’t just about getting the taste right, but perfecting the appearance too. As the fruits get larger on each plant, they are carefully wrapped in white paper to protect them. Once this net pattern has developed, each melon is even massaged and polished by hand. It is then covered to protect it from the sun for its final growing period. The melons are often sold in individual presentation boxes, sitting on silk or hay, or tied with a ribbon.
The farmers give the melons constant attention and care. Each melon takes 100 days to grow, and the fruit is grown all year round. There are 20 slightly different varieties of crown melon seeds grown depending on the season. The raised beds allow the farmers to control the amount of water each plant gets exactly, and air conditioning and heating keep the temperatures constant year-round.
Crown melons have four grades:
- Fuji (highest rating)
- yama
- shiro
- yuki (lowest rating)
Any melons with even minor defects are marked as yuki. 55% of the melons make shiro grade, 25% are yama, and 0.1%, or one in 1,000 of all melons harvested, are graded as fuji; the highest grade possible.
Now, I’m sure that is way more information about melons than you care to know, but while reading and learning about melon culture in Japan, I couldn’t help but think of Jesus’ words in Luke 12, beginning in verse 24. “Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!…Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!”
And, my friends, you are even of much more value than the best Fuji melon in Japan.
It is not to animals that God gave a soul. It is not to the animals that God entrusted His beautiful and glorious created Earth. It is not the animals that God made in His image. No, God did all of that for mankind; the crowning jewel of God’s creative work.
How do we know that we are of such value to God? Because Jesus did not bleed animal blood or chlorophyll. God He sent His Son, the God-MAN, Jesus Christ, in human flesh, to live the perfect life of faithfulness and love toward God we failed to live, and to bleed human blood as He died the death our sins deserve, in order that through His resurrection and defeating death, we would live toward God and with God through faith in Jesus.
Why are we so valuable to God? Certainly not because of our worthiness. God created us perfectly, we chose in our sinfulness to pollute ourselves and reject God. God has every righteous reason to condemn us all without delay. We are worth so much to God only because of His great love and compassion for us, and only because God’s righteous wrath was satisfied when He crushed Jesus for our iniquities instead of us. As God’s Word says in John 3:36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” God’s wrath remains on anyone who does not confess and truly believe in Jesus Christ, because God’s wrath is upon all humanity already because of our sin. When we put all of our hope and faith in Christ’s sufficient sacrifice for us, God honors His Son’s sacrifice and sees us not according to our sin, but according to the righteousness of Christ given to us in our baptism. The waters of baptism is what Paul is referring to in our text from Ephesians 5 when He says, “Christ loved the church [those called to faith and who live by faith in Jesus] and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her [make her holy], having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word [baptism!], so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”
There is one other interesting fact I learned about when researching this melon phenomenon. The master melon farmers of Japan have perfected the science of channeling all of the nutrients from the many lesser melons in their garden, to just the one selected fruit they think is going to make it to the Fuji level. They do this to produce something they prize, something they consider sacred. Likewise, our God and Father who is, as Jesus says in John 15, “the vinedresser”, calls us to repentance each and every day so that He can take out of our lives all of the things that steal His life and joy from us and hinder our spiritual growth. During this season of Lent, the church, you and I and all who have been cleansed and purified and made to be holy through faith in the blood of Christ, return to the Lord our God, on our knees, with open arms, and we come in faith to God, allowing Him to be the master grower of our faith as He desires to remove all the impurities in our life that deprive us, and instead fill us with the life He has already given to us in Christ, but that we too often deprive ourselves of with our sin.
Over the rest of these 40 days of Lent, “return to the Lord your God” as Scripture calls us to do (Deuteronomy 30:2), and “repent” and Jesus commands us, because the harvest is being prepared and “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.” (Matthew 3:10) As our Lord Jesus said at the beginning of His public ministry, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
And, remember that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today, and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
