Lily of the Field
Plants & TreesThe wildflower Jesus pointed to as proof of God's lavish care and a cure for anxiety.
The “lilies of the field” were the abundant wildflowers that blanketed the Galilean hillsides in spring — likely anemones and similar blooms — brilliant for a short season before being cut for fuel.
Their beauty was effortless and God-given: “they toil not, neither do they spin.” In the Song of Solomon the lily is also a figure of the beloved's loveliness, and a sign of the land's fragile, given beauty.
Jesus used them to dismantle worry: if God clothes short-lived field flowers more gloriously than Solomon in all his robes, “shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” The lily preaches that the God who decorates a meadow he knows will be burned tomorrow is certainly attentive to the needs of his children.