This past
week, Monday, as usual, I stopped for lunch at the best place in Lee County to
have fifty cent wings. The place has
caught on and every table was being used.
Deciding that I was not going to wait for one, since there was only me
anyway, I sat at the beer bar along side a number of other men; ordered my
eight wings, medium garlic, extra wet, basket of out of the world fries, and
water with extra lemon. The two televisions
were on but not loud enough to hear therefore easy to pick up on two or three
other conversations of fellas sitting close by. One of the conversations was between a what seemed to be a man of fifty or so with a tenor of anger in his voice with another man across the counter. I quickly recognized the issue he was talking about from the
local media coverage of a traffic death, just prior to Christmas. In brief, his daughter’s husband had been instantly
killed as he was transporting their children to a Christmas celebration party,
by a drunk driver. He now was relaying that less than a week later, he was
called into the doctor’s examine room with his wife and given the diagnose that
his wife is untreatable for lymphoblastic leukemia; in hospice care and would
probably die before the end of January. In a flash, this husband, father and
grandfather’s life has taken a tragic turn.
As I left that place, I buckled up, started my car but could not bring myself
to back out of the space without thinking; this is not an isolated incident. I
know better than to think the exaggerated thought that I that I know what life will
bring me. Regardless of who I am, whom I know, what worldview I hold, or how much
stuff I have or influence I am, I am not privy to the next second of my
life. As I think about it, sitting here, journaling, I stop and gasp at the unexpected outcome of a dear friend, my age who had the proverbial "rug" or residence pulled from under him and his wife. I'm thinking of the many family, friends, neighbors, colleagues I know and have known and pause to think of the times I have also not been
spared the unexpected turns of life – both for better and for worse.
I think
of the uncertainties of life that have naturally left me feeling anxious and
insecure. When life has served me
suffering, have I always found an immediate anchor? Have I always been certain that there is
hope, if I’ve held any at all?
I’m also remembering
a story told of a widow who had lost her only son. First she lost her husband
and then her child. How devastating it must have been for her. Thank You,
Father that I’m not in a society where male relatives offered the only
stability and status a woman could have, because this woman’s son would have
been her only source of support, hope, and strength. Being the only son, she probably
invested all of herself into him. He was quite literally her hope and her
future.
Now that he was dead, her only hope was gone. She faced an uncertain future. As
she followed his body to its place of burial, she was no doubt weeping and
overwhelmed with grief and pain. Life held nothing for her anymore, she likely
thought. We are told that when Jesus saw her, his heart went out to her. Unlike
many situations in the gospels, this widow did not ask or request for help. Yet
Jesus reached out to her. "Do not weep," he said in an attempt to
comfort, seeing her pain, her situation, and feeling along with her.
"Don't cry."
He then did something that no right-minded Jew would do. He touched the casket
and said to the dead man, "Arise." He risked being ritually unclean
according to Jewish law by touching the casket and his unfathomable words to a
dead man no doubt seemed insane to those around him. But the young man
immediately got up and spoke. Nothing was recorded about the mother's reaction,
but I see in my mind’s eye that she was both shocked and overjoyed. One moment
she was completely hopeless, and the next, her entire world was returned to
her.
What an ending to a sorrowful story. I realize that her life circumstance
somehow reflects the situation I’ve been in and will most assuredly be in
again. I know as I’m writing this, there
is someone in my life, a relationship, a situation in which I have given up
hope on. How do I proceed?
In this story, Jesus touched death and reversed it; bringing life out of what
was dead, making pure what was impure. He did this throughout his ministry
again and again, touching those who were dead to touch—whether corpses or
lepers or women without voice or means—and bringing healing and new meaning
into life. He not only offered hope, but embodied that hope for lives in need
of knowing what is real.
I’m convicted that from now on, when I encounter the uncertainties of life and
death, Jesus's promise can remain comforting, though perhaps not always with
the result I will desire or expect. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give
you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be
troubled and do not be afraid." This is both a personal and real promise—that
Christ is always present as I journey through life. What gives credence also is
that so many I have come in contact with over the years have come to know this
as a hope unlike any other. For the widow, in the biblical story, His presence
in the midst of her pain was the first spark of life.
Knowing that Jesus is with me in the struggles and darkness of life keeps me
from surrendering completely to my fears and insecurities when uncertainty or
tragedy is near. The hope that I clings to is a promise that is affirmed by the
God who came near: "Do not be afraid, for I am with you."
Father,God, thank You for Your promises! You are the only God, thru Who's promises given are always met. I may not receive my
deceased loved ones like Jesus did for the widow, but I am assured that despite
all that life serves me I will not walk through any earthly sojourn alone. Amen
