Loading...Alleluia Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed!
Now what do we do?
I once planted a tree for the sake of the Alleluia.
In Bowling Green Kentucky there is a park with a place set aside for memorial trees to be planted. Where the disc golf course meets the soccer field is a dogwood tree with a plaque that reads, Celebrate Sparkle. And next to it is a magnolia tree planted in memory of Mason Leathers. The plaque reads, Family live forever. Sparkle is my third baby who never saw earth before seeing heaven. Mason is my son’s nine year old friend who was killed while riding his bike at the end of his driveway three doors down. The only reason my sons weren’t riding their bikes there too is because we were hosting youth group that night. Sparkle and Mason died the same day in October of 2010.
Mason’s memorial service was held in the park. I think most everyone was there. I heard wailing. Someone swooned. Every set of shoulders shrugged with barely-suppressed sobs. Everyone wrote a note to Mason on a helium filled balloon and we released it. A professional trio sang a beautiful arrangement of Somewhere over the Rainbow. And nine white doves were released.
The pastor read a statement from the Courtney and John, Mason’s parents. The final sentence was a plea to Mason, “Come around and see us sometimes.” I added my silent prayer of, “And please take care of my baby.”
“Come around and see us sometimes.” Funny, when I first heard that plea I thought of a little transparent ghost-Mason peeking out from behind the corner and then impishly disappearing. My pained brain just couldn’t picture a world where he could ‘come around.’
Since then I’ve come around. Mason has become as much a part of my family as Sparkle. And they have both indeed come around. Not as transparent ghost-children. But as real flesh and blood face to face engagements with people who care-- care about them and their memory. Or care about trees being planted. Or care about kid’s safety and traffic control. Or care about women’s reproductive health.
Mary Magdalene came around to the tomb in the dark. We don’t know why. John’s gospel doesn’t mention anything about the other women or bringing spices for anointing Jesus dead body. But there she is alone in the dark where dead bodies are laid. She came around to the place of deepest sorrow and grief. And Jesus came around her deepest sorrow and grief. When resurrection is revealed to her she answers the “What do we do now?” by obeying Jesus’ instructions to go and tell others, “I have seen the Lord!”
“I have seen the Lord!” is the reason you and I do what we do in this community of faith. We may not get it recorded like Mary Magdalene did. But I guarantee it our witness is recorded in the hearts of those thirsting to drink in the message of new life.
I spent the season of Lent with Henri Nouwen, the author who lived in the L’Arche Residential Community for those with disabilities in Toronto. He describes the connection between resurrection and ministry which I experienced after Sparkle and Mason died when he writes, “All ministry is a caring attentiveness to vulnerable lives and a grateful receiving of the variety of fruits by which they manifest their beauty.” (Lifesigns, Doubleday) The caring attentiveness of others turned my vulnerability into beauty.
October of 2010 was a season during which I felt so vulnerable and possessed nothing to offer except my own sorrow and grief. I didn’t want to be ministered to thank you very much. I didn’t want to bother anyone with my sorrow and grief. Then into my sorrow and grief Jesus came around with the caring engagement of flesh-and- blood-face-to-face friends who dragged me to movies, who found a way to make me laugh, who asked me to hold their baby, who still go and visit Sparkle’s tree and leave a little angel with a prayer. My resurrection experience happened and still happens because others receive my sorrow and grief. And in the moment when they receive my sorrow and grief, sorrow and grief are transformed into beauty. Their caring attentiveness is why I can, with Mary Magdalene tell others, “I have seen the Lord!” I see the face of the risen Christ in the faces of Courtney and John Leathers. In the list of friends who reach out still. In the compassion I feel for every child. In the new life created out of loss. In a dogwood growing by a magnolia.
Please tell me. Tell one another. Tell the world which is so thirsty to know the answer that only you can uniquely give when asked, “What do we do now?”
