The great grape to raisin reversal

This is a story about a great reversal. You know that “to reverse” means to go backwards, like reversing a car. A reversal can also mean a change of some sort, and I’m going to tell you about a reversal having to do with grapes.

Of course, you know how delicious grapes are. Grapes are full of sweet juice that makes them great to eat and great for making juice. But most of the world’s grapes are used for making wine.

Grapes grow on vines that need good soil and lots of sunshine and water at just the right time. About 150 years ago, there was a severe drought in the grape-growing valleys of California. It was so hot and dry that the grapes shrivelled on the vine and didn’t fill out to become plump and juicy. The grape growers were saddened by the sight of their vineyards having such poor grapes. Rather than trying to make wine out of these shrivelled-up grapes, one grower sent a box of them to a grocer in San Francisco. He told the grocer, “Just sell them for whatever price you can get.”

Now what could the grocer do with such a box of bad grapes? He left them out in the sun for an extra day, and they dried out some more. When he looked at the grapes the next day, he suddenly realized that he was looking at . . . raisins!

That’s right, raisins are dried grapes. After that grocer’s discovery, raisins have been used for many things: they are eaten as a snack, they are great for baking raisin bread, raisin buns and raisin pies. I use them every morning in my oatmeal porridge. Dry raisins are much easier to store and transport than fresh grapes. So, from a tragedy of drought and disaster, a whole new industry developed. It was a great reversal.

A different kind of change

Now, why am I telling you this story about grapes and raisins? Well, there has been a great reversal in the history of the world, and it’s a little bit like the good grapes becoming dried-out grapes and their reversal to delicious and useful raisins.

The world started out being God’s wonderful creation, but human beings spoiled it by sinning, by not loving each other and not taking care of Creation. From the good grapes of wonderful, everlasting life, things changed, and humans were left with the bad, dried-out grapes of death. But then a wonderful reversal happened.

God sent Jesus into the world to show people how to live a life of love. But then Jesus died on a cross, and everyone thought that was the end of God’s good story. But it wasn’t. Jesus rose from the dead and promised that we, too, will rise from the dead. Jesus’ resurrection beat death to death, and now we can have new life again. Just as the grape farmers of California found new hope in raisins, so we find new hope in Jesus’ rising from the dead. That’s what we celebrate on Easter Sunday.