From the Pastor’s Desk

THE POMEGRANATE

It’s nearly September, and pomegranates will soon be on the shelf at your local grocery store. Recently we were looking at symbols for a potential stained-glass window at the front of our congregation and the pomegranate came as a surprise, “What does a pomegranate have to do with the Bible?”

Over the last decade, the pomegranate has received acclaim. Its health benefits have been touted, POM juice is readily available for purchase, and pomegranates are now on the shelves in the produce section in the fall and winter. Even grenadine, used for a Tequila

Sunrise, was originally made from this fruit. (“Grenade” is the French word for pomegranate.) The pomegranate, a fruit that ripens on a shrub that is about ten to fifteen feet high, grows to about the size between a lemon and a grapefruit. Inside the fruit are several hundred seeds which are each covered with a ruby red juicy casing and are eaten or squeezed to make juice. The taste of each seed is tart and semi-sweet. The fruit on the outside looks similar to an apple, only that it has a tubular stem on the top is shaped like a crown. The name “pomegranate” comes from the Latin and actually means “seeded apple.”

Pomegranates were grown from ancient times, and while not native to the Bible Lands, were cultivated there very early on. When the Israelites left Egypt they were disappointed to find that there were no pomegranates in the desert. “And why have you made us come up out of Egypt,” they said to Moses, “it is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates…” (Numbers 20:5) God assured them that in the Promised Land there would be more. “For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land…a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates…” (Deuteronomy 8:7-8) And when they came to Canaan to spy out the land, what do you think the spies came back with? You guessed it! Pomegranates. “Then they came to the Valley of Eshcol, and there cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes…They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs.” (Numbers 13:23) Thankfully they only had to live without pomegranates for forty years during their sojourn in the wilderness.

Solomon seemed to have a fascination with pomegranates, even describing a woman he was in love with in terms of a pomegranate. In something akin to an ancient Israelite pickup line, he said to his beloved in Song of Solomon 4:3, “Your temples behind your veil are like are like a piece of pomegranate.” Say what?! (I would not advise any man to try this pickup line on your significant other.) The book continues with further descriptions of the woman he loves as a “garden of pomegranate trees,” as well as with a modern day plea of, “meet me in the pomegranate orchard.” It doesn’t end there in Song of Solomon with the pomegranates imagery, but it probably would be best if I did.

Pomegranates were also used as decoration, and this is where we start to see what this fruit meant to the children of Israel. The capitals of the two columns that stood in front of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem were engraved with pomegranates and they were also embroidered on the vestments of the High Priest. “And upon its hem you shall make pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet, all around its hem, and bells of gold between them all around: a golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, upon the hem of the robe all around.” (Exodus 28:33-34) The decoration of the pomegranate in the temple likely had something to do with the meaning in the minds of the people of pomegranates as fruitfulness, God’s bounty, and even symbolic of the Garden of Eden.

Speaking of Paradise, it was a common opinion among the Jews that the pomegranate (not the apple) was the fruit that came from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that Adam and Eve ate. This symbolism was used by Christians as well, bringing us to the modern meaning of the pomegranate. Baby Jesus was often painted holding a pomegranate. The pomegranate became a symbol of what He came to do, take upon Himself the sins that we have committed, suffering the consequences in His body of eating the fruit of evil, sin and death. By His death He would bring fruitfulness and life for all. As the flesh of the pomegranate bursts open when ripe, so Christ did not stay dead, but burst forth alive and full of fruit for all. As one fruit with many seeds, the bursting pomegranate and its fruit symbolizes the fruitfulness and power of Jesus life and resurrection that those who follow Jesus partake of and receive by faith in Him.

Pomegranates are featured in many religious paintings because the pomegranate is a symbol of fruitfulness, the joys and gifts of God, the restoration of paradise, Jesus taking upon Himself the sin of the world, and the glory of His wonderful resurrection. As the women went to the tomb as the sun had risen and found that the stone had been rolled away, the pomegranate reminds us of Jesus and the hope of life after death. While not a common Christian symbol, its meaning reminds us of many important biblical themes. As you await the sight of the pomegranate on store shelves, you can remember that the pomegranate as a Jewish and Christian symbol that has been around for thousands of years.

In Christ,

Pastor Seifferlein