A (not so) strange story

What a strange story. I remember sitting in church as a child hearing Luke’s Road to Emmaus resurrection account and wondering what on earth happened? The idea that two followers walking on a road could be joined by Jesus and not recognize him seemed hard to imagine. Couldn’t they look over and see him for who he was? Couldn’t they hear in his questions his familiar voice? Then it happened. Gathered in a home, breaking bread, their eyes were opened, and they recognized Jesus. What a strange story.

All my life, I’ve wanted to see Jesus. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to hear his voice. I’ve wanted nothing more than to look over and see Christ beside me, but that’s never happened. All I’ve known is a sense of someone else being in my room when my parents knelt beside my bed to say prayers. All I’ve known is being awakened by a minister on the morning of my father’s funeral to go for a walk and feeling less sad. All I’ve known is an encouraging note given to me by a student just when I was questioning whether I made a mistake being a school chaplain. All I’ve known is sitting at dinner with a child while I made a painful confession and having him say, “I love you,” while passing the rolls. All I’ve known is sitting in a meeting of recovering alcoholics and addicts and hearing someone say exactly what I needed to hear. All I’ve known is the feel of someone’s hand squeezing mine just when I was feeling completely alone.

Maybe Luke’s story isn’t so strange after all.

Fear of Fear

I’m afraid of fear. I know, that’s redundant, but it’s also true. I’m not sure whether I was born this way or if it was something I learned, but the fact is, I run the other way from fear. I act as if it doesn’t exist, or shouldn’t, and that often appears like confidence, bravery, or callous irresponsibility - but it’s really fear in a costume. 

I’m in a program that speaks of living life surrounded by a hundred forms of fear. We share how we’ve coped (badly) with all those fears and learn from one another about better ways to live. As a wise person said, fear is going to be in the car with us; the trick is not letting it drive. As we make our way through these strange times of the coronavirus, it might be helpful to acknowledge the fear that sits beside us in the car and work to not let it take the wheel.

Someone once told me fear is like a road sign. It’s there to warn us and to make us aware of potential danger ahead. I’ve recently found fear as a sign pointing me to my need for faith. It doesn’t remover the danger, nor quell the fear, but it reminds me that I am not in this alone. I must do my part, but then I need to trust that God’s got this, God’s got me, and God’s got you. In fact, God’s got the whole world in God’s hands, as the song goes, and that’s something important for me to remember when the world around me is consumed with fear and it wants to drive the car.

I often think of something a classmate described when we were in seminary. He was in a swimming pool trying to teach his son how to jump (and later dive) off the diving board. His son, with knees shaking, stood at the edge of the diving board paralyzed with fear as he thought about jumping. In the water below, however, was his Dad. With arms opened wide, he called out and said, “I’ve got you.”

I stand on the edge of the diving board daily. It’s alright for my knees to shake, but, rather than focus on my knees and the fear causing them to shake, I want to look to the one below, the one with his arms opened wide saying, “I’ve got you.”

Always lower, eventually to the sea

I guess my fascination with water flowing came when I was a boy racing sticks with my cousins along the curb after a big storm. Walking on the sidewalk as the sticks jockeyed for position, I marveled at how fast they traveled before being swallowed by the drain at the end of the block.

“Where do they go now,” I once asked.

“Somewhere lower,” my cousins replied, as if it were obvious. “Eventually to the sea.”

Since then, I sit beside every stream I come across and watch as the water flows. Over and around rocks, under logs, it never gets old. Staring and wondering where the water is headed, I hear my cousin’s wisdom, “Always lower. Eventually to the sea.”

It is equally true of God’s grace. In the light of Easter morning, I celebrate the overflowing love and forgiveness brought into the world. Reading the familiar story this week, I thought about how something that happened so long ago still travels into the world, daily. It goes where it will, over and around rocks and under logs, but it flows, still.

But what struck me this year is that it flows “somewhere lower.” It travels down into the gutters, descending to reach the lowest points it can. Never does it climb up, always down, and that’s good news for those of us who live beneath the heights of Golgotha. Sometimes unable to climb the chancel steps where the adorned minister offers poetic prayers, the water flows toward the pews where a man gasps, “God, help me, please.” It flows past the upper parking lot where the fancy cars are parked to where the nurse arrives for her second night shift, then continues its way toward the house where there’s an empty seat at the Easter meal.

When I accept the wounds and the emotional scars I carry, the water always finds its way to me. When I ascend to higher ground, surrounded with my self-created magnificence, I’m suddenly beyond its reach. So, today, in light of the wonder of Easter and the humility my spiritual mirror brings, I laugh and dive into the stream again. Bobbing up and down, I travel beside others as we head toward the sea – soaked, and gratefully so.