GOD IN RETROSPECT
“What does it feel like to die?” That’s a question I was asked a number of years ago and the woman who asked it had every right – and every reason – to ask it. In the course of a few short years she lost her husband, and then she lost her only son. So she asked me, “What does it feel like to die?”
I can honestly say that in all my years of schooling, I have never encountered a scholarly answer to that question. Ask me about the soteriological aspects of the doctrine of the atonement or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin – those questions I can answer, or at least pretend to – but, “What does it feel like to die?” That’s a tough one. I mean, not many books have been written by authors who’ve experienced death themselves.
Thus, I had no biblically-based, theologian-backed answer. So I told her a story I encountered a long time ago. I read it in one of Peter Marshall’s sermons, in a book published by his widow, Catherine. The book is entitled, A Man Called Peter. The story goes like this:
Once upon a time, a little boy was suffering with leukemia. Death was imminent and the boy was well aware of it. It was almost as if he could feel the life slipping away from his tired, little body. One evening, while sitting alone with his mother, he asked her, “Mommy, does it hurt to die?” His mother was completely taken aback with the question and quickly averted her eyes to choke back her tears. She thought about the question for a moment or two, and then she turned back to her sick little boy.
She said, “Do you know how sometimes, late at night, you fall asleep on the couch between your father and me?” The little boy said, “Yes.” His mother added, “After you fall asleep, your father lifts you into his arms, gently carries you upstairs, and puts you into bed. Then the next morning, you wake up in your own bed…only you don’t know how you got there. That’s what death is like, I think. You simply wake up and find that you’re in heaven with God.”
What does it feel like to die? It’s like you fall asleep and wake up somewhere else, only you don’t know how you got there. You simply wake up – in heaven – with God. That’s a powerful story, and one that gives us tremendous comfort, I think. It depicts a scenario we can profess and embrace because of what happened to Jesus Christ on that first Easter Sunday. But what if we didn’t know the Easter story? What if we were completely unaware of what we call the doctrine of the resurrection? How would we deal with the prospect of death if we did not believe there is life after death?
Such was the case with the two men we encountered in the passage we read from the gospel according to Luke. It was a Sunday afternoon – Easter Sunday afternoon – and these two men were making the seven-mile trek from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Jesus of Nazareth had been crucified the Friday before, and it was a devastating turn of events for everyone who was close to him.
These two men – Simon and Cleopas were their names – were followers of Jesus Christ. Perhaps they weren’t in the so-called inner circle, but they were close to Jesus just the same.
They may not have been numbered among the original twelve disciples, but they had been captivated by his message just the same. Only now, he was gone.
Now in those days, Judaism did have a remote idea of some kind of life after death, but that was only after some sort of far-off Judgment Day. So for them, death was basically the end of things. Three women – Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James – claimed to have seen Jesus alive, but to all concerned, it seemed to be nothing more than an idle tale. The men simply would not listen to the women. Of course, that would never happen today!
So here we are, with Simon and Cleopas, making the long and arduous journey to Emmaus. They’re discussing the events of the past few days, trying to make some kind of sense of it all, when suddenly they’re joined by a third man. This third man is Jesus, but as our passage says, somehow, “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”
The mysterious stranger said to Simon and Cleopas, “What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Cleopas said to him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?”
They went on to explain all the events that had transpired. Surely they spoke of Jesus’ triumphal ride into Jerusalem, his cleansing of the Temple, his confounding of the Pharisees, and his Last Supper with his disciples. Then they likely spoke of his brutal crucifixion, and how some of their own company now said that he was alive.
The stranger said, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then Jesus – as yet unknown to Simon and Cleopas – spoke of how Old Testament prophets had foretold all these things. And as they listened, their hearts burned within them.
Finally, they arrived in Emmaus. The third man appeared to be going further, but Simon and Cleopas constrained him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is on toward evening and the day is now far spent.” I believe this seemingly insignificant turn of events holds a profound message for us. Had Jesus not been invited inside, he would have kept right on going. Ladies and gentlemen, Jesus walks with us as well…and he will keep right on going unless we take the time to invite him inside.
I think of how Jean Vanier describes his L’Arche community, a ministry to the mentally handicapped. (Pardon my French, but I’m doing the best I can.) In any case, Vanier describes his ministry this way. What would happen if you held a wounded bird in your hands and you closed your hands together? The answer is, the bird would be crushed or suffocated. And what would happen if you held that wounded bird in flat, open hands? The answer is, the bird would fly away or fall to its death.
But what would happen if you held that bird in cupped hands? There the bird would be nurtured until it was well. Vanier believes that that’s the way God holds us. He does not close his hands together such that we be crushed or suffocated. He does not hold his hands flat such that we might fall to our death. Instead, God cups his hands to hold us. We can still fly away, or we can rest in God’s hands and be nurtured. In a way, I think that’s what our passage is trying to say to us. If we want God to hold us, then we must invite him to do so. If we want the Christ to be with us, then we must take the time to invite him inside.
Once inside, Simon and Cleopas and the unknown stranger sat down to dinner. Then the stranger took bread in a strangely familiar way. Then he blessed it and broke it in a strangely familiar way. Suddenly their eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus! Then as quickly as he had been recognized, he vanished out of their sight.
Simon and Cleopas said to one another, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he walked with us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” This day had probably been about the lowest point in the lives of Simon and Cleopas. Yet suddenly Simon and Cleopas realized that – at the lowest point in their lives – Jesus had been with them all along. Jesus had been with them all along, yet they had not recognized him. They did not realize that Jesus had been with them until they looked back on their trying times.
How often the same is true for us. It is not until we look back on the trying times in our lives that we come to realize that God was with us every step of the way. Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps we could even say that we see God in retrospect. We see God when we look back on the troubled times in our lives and come to realize that God was with us all along.
I think of a famous story by an unknown author entitled, “Footprints.” You know the story. A man dreamed one night that he died and he stood before the throne of God. The scenes of his life were laid out before him and they appeared as two sets of footprints in the sand. One set of footprints belonged to God, the other set of footprints belonged to him. Then he noticed that at the most troubling times in his life, there was but one set of footprints in the sand. He said to God, “Lord, you promised me that you would never forsake me; that you would never leave me alone. Why is it, then, that at the most distressing times of my life, there is but one set of footprints in the sand?”
To which God replied, “My precious, precious child. I love you and I would never leave you alone. The single set of footprints in the sand you see…are the times I carried you.” We see God in retrospect. We see God when we look back on troubled times in our lives and realize that God was with us all along.
Speaking of seeing the footprints of God, listen to this. A hospice physician in Denver, Colorado was heading home from work at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon in January. It was rush hour and he was driving down Colorado Boulevard, and the traffic was unbearable. Then suddenly, his nearly new car just died. He managed to coast into the parking lot of a convenience store. He found himself cursing his apparent bad luck but he was thankful that at least he wasn’t blocking traffic on Colorado Boulevard. He pulled out his cell phone, called a tow truck, and settled in to wait.
He noticed a young woman walking out of the convenience store with a couple of small bags in her hands. Suddenly, she slipped on the ice and appeared to hit her head on a gas pump. Naturally, the physician got out of his car to see if she was all right. As he helped her to her feet, he noticed that she had dropped something. He quickly picked it up and handed it to her. It was a nickel.
Then he noticed that she had only put $4.95 of gas into a rusty old Suburban. Today that would buy you, what? A little more than a gallon of gasoline? Anyway, inside that rusty old Suburban he saw three children – one of them still in a car seat. The woman said, “Please. I don’t want my children to see me cry.” The two of them then stepped to the other side of the gas pump.
The woman began to tell her sad story. She was from Kansas City, and her boyfriend had walked out on her and the children. She called her parents in California, with whom she had not spoken in five years, and they invited her to come and stay with them until she could get back on her feet. Then the doctor asked the woman, “Were you praying?”
The woman stepped back a couple of steps and looked at him like he was a nut. The doctor said, “I’m not a fanatic. I just want to help.” Then he swiped his credit card at the gas pump and gave her a full tank of gas. He went into a McDonald’s next door and bought three big bags of food. The kids tore into it like ravenous wolves. The woman looked at the man and said, “Are you an angel?” The doctor said, “No. Sometimes God just sends ordinary people to do his bidding.”
He sent the woman and her kids on their way with a full tank of gas and full stomachs. Then the doctor went back to his car and – just for the heck of it – put the key into the ignition and turned it. Miracle of miracles, the car started right up and the doctor drove home. Looking back on that situation, the doctor believed he had seen the footprints of God.
We see God in retrospect. We see God when we look back on troubled times in our lives and realize that he was there all along. Take the time to look back on some of the troubled times in your own life. Then ask yourself, “What do I see? What do I really see?” Amen.
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