THE RIVER

About 10 years ago I stood on the banks of a river with my arm around a shivering teenager.  A flock of church folks encircled us and sang “Shall We Gather at the River”.

Together we walked into the river.  Her journey to that river had been a long one; born in Hawaii, moving to rough neighborhoods in the southwestern U.S., parents unable to care for her, an aunt and uncle in West Virginia who decided to take her in.  “I baptize you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Dying with Christ.  Be raised with Christ.”

She served as liturgist in one of my churches.  I would be there to pray with her aunt when she went astray.  I picked on her when she ran over a fence and the neighbor’s goat escaped.  I watched her graduate; did her wedding.

This evening her family will gather around her ashes and memorialize her.  Her tire blew out.  As she tried to get the car out of the road another driver struck her.  At 23 years of age she died.

THE CRADLE AND CROSS

At Christmas we hear the good news that God so deeply loved us that Jesus willingly came into this world in vulnerable flesh and blood.  God, in Christ, would be born into a cradle of poverty, and live in rough neighborhoods where even infants were not safe.  He, also, would come to a river and identify himself with all who would go astray, all who need grace.  His life would lead him to a cross.  To new-life resurrection.

There is great mystery in what Christ choose in becoming human, in identifying with those who needed saving, in dying and rising.  But, I do know that there is a passionate, loving anger in Christ.  God’s heart is broken by the way this world breaks us.  So, God became incarnate in Jesus to defeat death; to not give tragedy the last word; to promise a new creation.

On the phone, speaking across the miles to Aunty, I say, “I know you are angry.  God is angry at what this broken world does to us.  Only Jesus can do something about this.  You are loved.”

Indeed, this Sunday, perhaps on Christmas Eve, as you gather before a manger scene cradle and a cross know that you are loved; deeply, sacrificially loved.  The cradle, the river, and the cross testify that no matter what happens in life, you are loved.