Bean Soup

I love bean soup. I adore everything about it. It’s tasty, inexpensive, and easy to make. Put a ham shank in a pot with a jar of great northern beans, water, onions, potatoes, carrots, and some spices and let it cook for a few hours. Personally, I believe it needs to cook for at least four hours, but some would differ on the time to take. It’s a long process either way, but in the end, it’s worth it.




The key to a good bean soup is to let it cook long enough with the ham shank. This allows the flavors from the bone to seep through the soup giving it a base of smoky ham flavor. It’s the final touch when it’s done that gives the soup a hearty, outstanding flavor and ranks it as one of the greatest cold weather meals of all time. (That, dear reader, is my own personal opinion, of course. The other thing that happens is the beans, as the liquid cooks down, thickens the water some. So it’s more like a stew than a soup, but we’ll still call it soup.



But there’s one problem that I have with bean soup; the process of making it. Once I’ve got everything together and in the pot, I have to let it cook. And, by the end of the first hour, the smell of the soup has wafted through the entire house. What’s the problem with this? Well, dear reader, the problem is that I have to smell it. It’s not that I hate the smell, far from it, in fact. It’s that I love the smell, and I get HUNGRY. I want at this point to just sneak a bowl of it. So I go into the kitchen, grab the spoon, and stir it, the whole time wanting to take some out and eat it.



That’s not what I do. As tempting as it is to just have a bowl, I know that doing so before it’s ready means that I’ll be eating an inferior bowl of soup. But I still have to smell it. And I’m hungry. It hasn’t reached its full maturity yet. It won’t be at it’s best until it cooks enough, so I have to deal with the smell and just let it be. This is difficult, since we live in an instant gratification world, but instant isn’t always better. And yet, it’s almost torturous to do nothing but stir my soup and do nothing else.



What is that, dear reader? You thought I was going to start talking about my faith despite suffering? You want to know what bean soup has to do with it? Don’t you see the analogy in it?



Much like bean soup, we will be changed. The bodies we have here on earth will pass away, but we will be given new ones. Bodies without defect, without disability, without suffering. How can I have faith even as my body rebels against me? Easy… this is only temporary.



In 2 Corinthians, Paul tells us, “we will not all sleep, but we will all be change—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. The trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will all be changed.” This demonstrates my hope. Do I want to be healed of my Parkinson’s? There should no doubt to you, dear reader. I’m often jealous of those whose bodies work as they should. I can’t dwell there, though, because the promise is that this is only temporary, even though it will last the rest of my life here on earth. In the next verse, Paul continues, “the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, the mortal with the immortal.”



How do I, the mortal, clothe myself with the immortal? The answer is found in Christ’s sacrifice. Through that sacrifice, I can have communion with God. By the redemption brought by Christ crucified, I, the mortal, can clothe myself in the hope offered by God, the immortal. It is through faith, hope, and love that I find my strength. If I can’t have what I want in a body that doesn’t rebel, then I’ll just wait on the bean soup to be done.